Digimon Existential Theater Presents: No Exit
by CitrusCactus
Summary: Adventure/02: What turns courage into cowardice, love into hate, sincerity into shallowness? They don't know, but now they have to live with the consequences. Meanwhile, I'm sure Sartre is spinning in his grave.
1. Stage One: Denial

Digimon Existential Theater Presents: No Exit  
>aka, "Hell is Other DigiDestined"<p>

**Fandom: **Digimon Adventure/02**  
>Genre: <strong>General/Drama**  
>Summary:<strong> "No Exit" adapted for the Digimon Adventure universe. I'm sure Sartre is spinning in his grave.**  
>Rating (all chapters): <strong>Probably PG-13, possibly R**  
>Warnings (all chapters):<strong> Dub canon, slightly AU (ignores epilogue), some swears, one mention of upper female anatomy, bloodless and/or vague descriptions of violence, unrequited love triangle, existential drama bordering on angst. Phew!

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><p><em>Author's Note: I've had this idea in my head ever since I read Jean-Paul Sartre's "No Exit" in a high school lit class (read Estelle's lines in Mimi's dub voice and you'll never go back!). I do not own and did not originate any of the characters or situations that appear below. I'm just the one that was crazy enough to put them all on the same page together.<em>

_Like the summary says, this is an adaptation of a play, although it is in prose form. I tried to stay true to the original meaning, but I made some slight deviations for the sake of the pre-established relationships of the characters, thus the meaning is a little different. This fic (which is based on my own subjective, incomplete, and probably inaccurate reading of the play) is no substitute for the original, which I'm sure you can find in its entirety if you are indeed interested._

_Note that I used strictly dub canon right up until the epilogue, which I ignored out of necessity, so if the eccentricities of the dub or AUs are a problem, consider yourself warned about both. _

_Finally, and perhaps most importantly, please realize that this fic is a labor of love, of both the Adventure universe and the characters (yes, *all* of the characters). Although none of them come out of this story smelling like roses, I didn't write it as an excuse for OOC-ness, character bashing, or to "fix" any canon plot points. I just wanted to explore their darker sides given the right circumstances. _

_If all of that hasn't scared you away, please enjoy!_

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><p>If he hadn't known better, Tai Kamiya would have sworn he was dreaming.<p>

He was walking down an unfamiliar corridor that was lined with doors on either side. The walls and floor were made of some black, shiny material and lit by torches set in brackets every few feet along the wall. They emitted flickering green flames that didn't succeed so much in penetrating the darkness as much as they cast an eerie glow over their surroundings.

Staring into the polished surfaces, Tai could make out what could only be his reflection, blurry and indistinct. Like him, it was moving resolutely forward to some unknown destination, although unlike him, it seemed to be constantly fighting not to be swallowed by the blackness surrounding it. Every so often, a flame would gutter particularly violently and his mirror image would distort and waver before his eyes. For reasons he couldn't put into words, it made him slightly nervous to think that his other self flickered out in this manner, even though he knew it was ridiculous of him. It wasn't as if he himself were in danger of disappearing every time his reflection did. Nevertheless, he couldn't help but notice that the shimmering outline of his companion was much more solid.

His companion?

_That's right_, he reminded himself. He had almost forgotten. When he had first arrived in this strange place, he hadn't even realized that the other being was there until his eyes had fallen upon it, as if it hadn't even existed until that moment. Now, he took the time to really look at it properly.

Unless he was mistaken, it was a digimon, although completely unlike any Tai had ever encountered before. It was tall, humanoid, and masculine-looking, but somehow ethereal and otherworldly, and had a sort of lithe gracefulness in the way it walked. Its head was long, narrow, and wolf-like, with a long mane of gray hair streaming down its back. It was clothed most peculiarly: naked at the torso and arms except for its short silvery fur, its legs covered in baggy pants and some sort of loincloth, sandals on its large feet. In one of its thick, powerful arms it carried another one of those green torches, which it was using to light their way as they kept their steady pace. To complete the rather bizarre picture, a pair of large golden wings protruded from its back.

Tai glanced backwards, the corridor stretching behind him and becoming lost in the darkness. Aside from their footsteps and the soft dry crackle of the flames, it was completely silent. He couldn't even hear his own heartbeat.

_No screams_, he mused. _Maybe the rooms are soundproof?_

He _thought _he knew where he was, although he didn't feel ready to admit it to himself just yet. He didn't know _how _he knew, or why he felt compelled to follow this digimon in front of him. It seemed that his current- what was the right word for it? Condition? That sounded about right. His current _condition_ afforded him awareness about certain things without being told. For instance, despite the fact that the creature had barely even looked at him since he had arrived, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement between the two of them that Tai would follow the digimon wherever it led him. This promise seemed to hang like shackles around Tai's neck; it bound them together such that he could not deviate from their course even if he tried.

Not that he _had _tried. Not that he would. The dynamic between himself and the digimon didn't really bother him; its existence was a mere curiosity. _Besides_, he thought with a wry smile, _it's not like I have anything better to do anyway_.

Regardless, he couldn't help but wonder what this corridor was supposed to represent, really. His brain, no doubt still overactive from adrenaline, dredged up what he thought had been a long-forgotten account Davis had given him of the Digimon Emperor's fortress, and he amusedly toyed with the idea that he had somehow ended up there. He glanced at his companion again, solemn and silent before him, but quickly abandoned the notion when he couldn't find a Dark Ring or Spiral anywhere on its body. It had been a silly thought, really, maybe even wishful thinking on his part. The Digimon Emperor, the Digital World, and the boy he had been when those things were first and foremost on his mind were all, in more ways than one, a lifetime away.

After what was either a few minutes or a few hours, the digimon's footsteps fell silent. Tai glanced sideways and noticed that it had stopped at a door, identical to all the others in the hallway, but obviously their destination. Seeing as there was no handle, and no hinges, Tai wondered how they would open it, but his companion used its free hand to make some complicated motion along the seam where door met wall, and at once it slid up easily into the recesses of the ceiling.

The wolf-man stepped aside, allowing Tai access to the doorway. He understood he was supposed to enter and obliged, bracing himself for what he thought he would find inside. Would it be red-hot pokers, or an iron maiden, or...

Couches. Three of them, each backed against a different wall, and arranged so they were all facing the center of this new room. A small, unlit fireplace in the left-hand corner with a large bronze statue on its mantel. A luridly-patterned carpet covering the floor. Tai took a few steps into these new surroundings, then turned back to see where he had just come from. The strange digimon had followed him just inside.

"So... here we are?" Tai asked, uncertain of what he was supposed to do now.

"Yes, Mr. Kamiya," said the digimon in a slow, distinctly male-sounding voice.

Tai took a few more steps into the center of the room. "This is really what it looks like."

"Yes."

Tai wasn't sure he was ready to believe that. His experiences with the Digital World had taught him that appearances could be deceiving, so he decided to remain aloof and cautious as he continued to survey the room. He turned to face the digimon again, searching for some sign of deception on that slender face. It was regarding him with a gaze that was both calm and faintly curious. But there was something else about it... Tai was having such a hard time looking into the digimon's eyes. They seemed to pierce him in a way that was off-putting, _wrong_, even, and that did nothing to decrease his anxiety.

Rather than risk continued eye contact, Tai let his eyes wander around the room one more time, this time taking in more detail. As a whole, it was done in an old-fashioned, ornate style that Tai recognized by sight, but not by name: Victorian or American Colonial or something. Admittedly ugly to his taste, but certainly bearable. It was also well-lit, in stark contrast to the hallway they had just come from, but to Tai's surprise there wasn't a lamp or chandelier in sight. Rather, the walls and ceiling themselves seemed to be radiating a harsh, bright light. Odd, to be sure, but aside from that minor point, it was a perfectly ordinary-looking drawing room: square, relatively roomy, not an instrument of torture in sight. Well, the sofas _did_ look a bit on the uncomfortable side...

"Are all of the rooms like this one?"

"Of course not, sir." The digimon seemed to smirk, baring his teeth a little in the process. "Most of our clientele are digimon. Can you imagine many of them having use for a drawing room? We had to make some special arrangements for you, to be sure, but the management thought our facilities fitting, considering your background."

Tai had to admit that the digimon had a point about its fellows not needing these human-like accoutrements, although in his experience it hadn't stopped some of them from having them anyway. Of course, the digimon's answer didn't really explain why they thought that _he _had any use for a room like this, especially decorated as it was. He supposed it didn't matter much; he had certainly lived in worse. But still...

"Look, what's the point of all this?" he blurted out suddenly, spinning around to face the digimon. He hoped he sounded braver than he felt, even though he still could not look the digimon in the eye. "I mean, is this some sort of a joke? I know what happened, I know where we are. I'll face it like a man. So why don't we just cut the crap and get to the fire and pitchforks already?"

The digimon let out a harsh rasping sound, opening his mouth and baring his teeth again. Tai tensed in preparation for him to digivolve or otherwise morph into his true, torturous form, but nothing happened. It was a few seconds later that Tai realized the digimon was... _laughing_.

"It seems you are the one who insists on telling jokes, Mr. Kamiya." He noticed the glare on Tai's face and the dog-like laughter died down. "I meant no offense, of course. It is a sentiment that I have heard expressed by our new arrivals many times before, but I do continue to find it amusing. It is what almost everyone asks first. They do not bother asking about food preparations, or bathroom accommodations. Equally futile lines of inquiry, mind you, but I always find it surprising that those things are not higher up on our guests' list of priorities. You really mustn't believe everything you hear on the other side, Mr. Kamiya."

It took a while for Tai to process what the digimon had just said. "You're saying... you mean you're not my torturer?" He was still suspicious.

"That is correct, sir. My job is to escort guests to their rooms, and make sure they are settled in. Aid them in their period of transition, you might say. You may think of me as an assistant, or a valet, if you wish."

Tai considered the digimon warily for a moment, but felt himself relaxing slightly. He could tell (again, without being able to say _how_) that the digimon was telling the truth, and that he didn't have anything to fear from him.

"All the same," he said, cracking a sarcastic smile, "it would be too much to ask for a toothbrush."

"Not too much, Mr. Kamiya, but like I said before, pointless."

_Fair enough_, thought Tai, looking around the room again. He had to admit he had never felt less like needing one, or food or drink for that matter, even though he could barely remember the last time he had put anything in his stomach. After a few seconds, he spoke again.

"There aren't any mirrors or windows. Nothing breakable in here at all." The valet, or whatever, made no reply. "And no bed. So, what, there's no sleep either?"

"That is so."

This was a bit of a blow. Tai had always looked forward to sleep, to dreams, to the snooze button, as a way to hit reset on himself. No matter what was going on in his life, he had always been able to retreat to the world of his subconscious, to forget his problems and responsibilities, if only for a few hours.

He met the valet's unsettling gaze at long last and forced himself to keep looking, even as it seemed he would crumble from the force that those pale, pupil-less eyes seemed to exert on his own. It was then that he finally realized what it was that disturbed him about those eyes, that stare.

_He doesn't blink- no eyelids_. He was pretty sure that the other digimon he had encountered had always had eyelids. He broke eye contact in order to try shutting, blinking, winking, and squinting with his own, all to no avail. The room stayed in perfect focus. _I don't have eyelids either._ How had he not noticed before now? Had he really taken them so much for granted?

His eyes flicked around the room again, searching for another thing he had assumed would be there, and once again came up empty.

"There's no light switch. Doesn't the light ever go out?" He suspected he already knew the answer.

The digimon's gaze shifted upward. "The management can turn the power off if they want to, but I cannot remember them ever having done so on this floor. We have all the light we want."

Tai tried another tactic, determined to try to alleviate his growing sense of unease. "What about outside? Is it daytime now?"

A slight crease appeared on the digimon's forehead. "I don't understand, sir."

"Oh, come on. You know, outside this room. Outside your facilities."

"Our facilities are all there _are_, sir. Hallways, stairs, and more rooms. There is no 'outside' that I am aware of."

Tai thought that he was beginning to understand, but it did nothing to improve his mood, or stem the anxiety that now felt like it was gnawing at his insides. "So," he said in a hollow tone. "It's life without a break."

"What do you mean, Mr. Kamiya?" The valet's voice was impassive.

"I mean, don't get me wrong," Tai said quickly. For whatever reason, he didn't want the valet to have an inaccurate impression of him. "I said I'd face up to the situation. I'm not going to pretend that it's not happening. But it's been a lot to deal with. You should understand, I, uh..." he trailed off, trying to find the right words to explain himself. Why was it so difficult?

"I tease people," he continued finally. "And I tease myself. It's like a reflex. But I can't do that without a break. If I can't sleep, or blink- then there's no rest, no way to shut the light out of my eyes, or my head. It's just..."

He broke off again, rubbing his temples, before chancing another look at the valet. "What did you mean when you said I was here because of my background?"

"Forgive me, sir, but you are one of the DigiDestined? Part of the group of children that defeated Apocalymon?"

"That was a long time ago, but yeah."

"You have strong ties to our world. More so than most humans. That is why management decided that you should fall under our care."

"But they really decided that I should be _here_?" Tai asked emphatically, hoping his meaning was clear. "Are you sure there's not some sort of mistake?"

"You are the bearer of the Crest of Courage, are you not, Tai Kamiya?" the valet rumbled.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Are you not?"

"Yeah." Tai said, defeated. "Yeah, I am."

"Then you belong here," the digimon finished simply.

Tai wasn't sure how that could be considered answering his question, but he did not press the issue further. There was silence for a few moments, and then the valet spoke again.

"Very well, Mr. Kamiya. If you do not need me any more, I will be off."

"What? You're going?" Even though he was unsettling, practically emotionless, and frustratingly enigmatic, the valet was as close to a friendly face as Tai felt he was likely to find here. He wasn't sure why, but the thought of being left alone caused the wave of anxiety to surge through him more powerfully than ever.

"Wait." He had just noticed a button on the wall next to the door. "That's a bell, right? Will you come back if I press it?"

The valet looked as if he were choosing how to answer this question carefully. "Perhaps, yes... I would not rely on it too heavily, however. There is something wrong with the wiring, and it does not always work."

Tai crossed the room and pressed the button repeatedly, hearing a faint buzzing sound each time. "It sounds like it's working all right to me."

The valet shrugged his narrow shoulders, his wings rustling slightly as he did so. "So it is. Nevertheless, it is... capricious."

Tai strode over to the fireplace, his mind more at ease from discovering the bell. He picked up another object he had failed to notice on his first several passes over the room. "A letter opener? What's the point of this?"

The valet did not answer. Tai sighed resignedly. "Never mind. You can go."

He laid the letter opener back on the mantel as the valet closed the door behind him. He still couldn't believe that this... situation, this room, was really what he had been left with. It just didn't make sense.

He examined the statue a bit closer. It was a human figure, oddly proportioned, with a contorted look on its face. It was not pleasant to look at, but than again, he had never been much for art appreciation. Maybe it was one of those modern pieces. He would probably get used to it in time.

Tai explored the rest of the room as thoroughly as he could, looking for clues that would suggest either a sinister motive or a way out- hidden trap doors, a trick fireplace, _anything_- but no luck. It seemed the room really was what it was, and nothing more. He was alone, truly alone, for the first time in as long as he could remember. He collapsed on the nearest couch, the one against the wall directly opposite the door, and tried to ignore the feelings that now seemed to be devouring him from the inside out, creating a gaping hole in his chest.

_Agumon_.

He wished Agumon was with him.

He took his digivice out of his pocket. It was old and battered after all of these years, but it had always functioned just as well as the day he had received it. As he stared at it, memories rose to the front of his brain like bubbles to the surface of a pond, one for each scratch and smudge on the screen.

It was true that Tai had distanced himself from his life as a DigiDestined: as he grew older, he made fewer trips to the Digital World, moved out of Japan, and gradually lost touch with ten of the people he had shared his greatest adventure with. He hadn't spoken to any of them in years; now they were mostly just distant memories, reminders of a part of his life that had been and gone.

But not Agumon. Agumon had been a constant presence in his life ever since he was a teenager. They were more than just friends; they were partners, brought together by destiny, united in mind and spirit. Their bond could not be weakened by anything as mundane as time or place. Agumon was part of everything he did, never questioning him, always willing to support whatever Tai's immediate goals had been, always there to lend an ear when life became a little too overwhelming. Maybe he had started to take the little orange dinosaur for granted over the years, like blinking, but now he felt his absence like he would have felt a missing limb.

Tai cupped the digivice in both hands. Its screen was black, and its surface cold, even though he had been holding it for a few minutes now. He pressed it to his chest, as if trying to feel for a heartbeat, but it remained silent, still, and ice-like in his fingers.

He would have to face that Agumon was really and truly gone. Gone from Earth, gone from the Digital World, and gone from wherever it was that Tai had ended up.

He sighed, leaning back into the sofa and staring at the ceiling. Maybe this place, this solitude, was for the best. Even though he had tried to put on appearances for the valet of having accepted what had happened to him, it was only now, in this innocent-looking drawing room with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company, that he really allowed the truth to sink in.

"I'm dead."

He spoke quietly to himself, but the phrase seemed to disturb the air around him, then expand and ripple out into every corner of the room. It resounded off of the walls and back through his body, vibrating his hands, his head, his unbeating heart. It was as if he were a bell, hollowed out by sorrow and regret, filled with nothing but air that pulsed and trembled with the echo of those simple yet terrible words.

He was dead. And all that was left to him were his memories and this stupid, ugly room.

The room... he hadn't noticed before, but it was uncomfortably warm, so much so that he had started to sweat. He stood up, pocketing his digivice and loosening his tie in the process. Could the valet do anything about the temperature?

He crossed the room to where the buzzer was mounted to the wall. The valet had said it didn't always work... but what did he have to lose in trying? He pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

He pressed it again. Again, nothing.

Again and again and again.

Nothing.

A moment of panic seized him. He leapt to the door, scanning it frantically for a handle or knob before remembering that the digimon had not used either to open it, then tried pushing, lifting, and prying around the seam, all with no effect. Next, he called the valet, and when that didn't work, he started shouting and beating the door with his fists, desperate to make himself heard even if the bell refused to work.

It was only after his hands were sore and his voice slightly hoarse that he started to calm down. He took a few deep breaths, and regarded the door with a newfound sense of clarity.

_Get a grip, Kamiya_, he told himself firmly. He had nothing but time here, so there was no reason to fly off the handle. He walked slowly back over to his couch, his mind whirring. He would try the bell again later of course, but right now it would probably do him well to just sit and think. He could reflect on the path that had led him here, make peace with his life as he had left it. While this may have been out of character for the former leader of the DigiDestined, he couldn't deny the idea held a certain appeal to him at the moment. This was _his_ afterlife, after all, so he might as well make the best of it he could. Particularly if he was alone like this.

However, no sooner had he settled himself down on the stiff cushions of his couch than the door slid open.

Tai's jaw dropped. Of all of the people that the valet could have escorted through that door, Tai had never expected _her_.

"Did you call, sir?" asked the valet.

"I, uh... no." Tai had been planning to say yes. There had been nothing stopping him from saying it, that one little syllable. But the word died on his lips as he stared at the woman now standing just inside the door.

And Sora Takenouchi stared back.


	2. Stage Two: Anger

Digimon Existential Theater Presents: No Exit  
>aka, "Hell is Other DigiDestined"<p>

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><p><em>Author's Note: Just a reminder, I own nothing. And I really don't hate any of these characters; quite the opposite. I think Sora comes across as being the most different, but someone had to be Inez, and she really was the best choice. Hopefully her shift in character will be adequately explained in later chapters.<em>

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><p>The Keeper of the Crest of Love didn't look all that different from how Tai remembered her. Certainly she was older, but her reddish-brown hair was still short, just brushing past her shoulders, and she was conservatively dressed in a black turtleneck and jeans. It looked to Tai as if she had retained that unique combination of tomboyishness and sophistication she had developed while they were in high school.<p>

The valet acknowledged Tai's response with a slight nod of his head before turning to address her. "Here is your room, madam. If you do not require any information from me, I shall take my leave. With regards to the toothbrush, the lights, and the bell, this gentleman can tell you anything as well as I can."

Sora made no indication that she wanted the valet to stay. Without another word, the valet left the room, the door closing behind him with a soft _whoosh_.

For a few moments, Tai and Sora stared at each other. It was Sora who broke the silence.

"Where's Yolei?"

Tai looked at her curiously, momentarily caught off guard. Of all the things she could have said to him, it was _that_? "I, er... I have no idea."

"Sure you don't," she eyed him suspiciously. "I see. It's torture by separation, then. Well, it won't work with me. She was starting to get on my nerves, anyway. I don't think I'll miss her after all. So, what else did you have in mind, then, hmm? Whatever it is, I won't break easily."

Tai was completely thrown off by these words, and the way Sora was staring at him. Now that he looked at her a bit more closely, he saw that there was a subtle difference in the face of the person he had known so well. It was slightly lined, of course, as an artifact of being at least twenty years older than when he last saw her, but there was also a hardness about her mouth and eyes that he was certain had never been there all those years ago. It made her look stern, even somewhat cruel.

"Sora," he said cautiously. "What are you talking about? Who do you think I am?"

Sora gave a humorless laugh.

_Unbelievable_, she thought. _Why were they playing dumb? _

It hadn't taken her long to figure it out thus far. The Anubismon that led her here had been the most obvious clue. If they hadn't wanted her to know her escort's name, they should have taken her digivice away when she arrived. Of course, knowing Anubis' role as guardian of the dead didn't hurt either- having a father who taught college-level cultural anthropology meant that she had absorbed a lot of random mythological information over the years. So why, after the overwhelming evidence, had this demon, or whatever, assumed the form of a man from her past and professed not to know what she was talking about? It was absurd! Well, she wasn't going to play along.

"You?" she said derisively. "You're my torturer!"

The demon laughed. "You've gotta be kidding me!" His disbelief was fairly convincing. "You really think I'm one of them? Sora, it's me- Tai! Tai Kamiya!"

"Yeah, ok." Sora could feel herself smiling patronizingly and noticed that the Tai-demon seemed to crumple slightly as a result. Certainly... not what she had expected, but she wouldn't let _him_ know that. If he kept giving her invitations to maintain control over her situation like this, she would continue taking them as long she could.

Even if it was just staving off the inevitable.

"Come ON, Sora!" Tai fumbled for something he could say- anything- that would serve as proof that he was really _him_, simultaneously wrestling with the desire to shake some sense into her. "I... I threw up in your hat when we were four! I saved you from Datamon in the Digital World! I gave you a hairclip for your birthday one year, and you hated it!"

She felt her eyebrows raise, hoping her surprise was not too noticeable. She did not speak, but made a deliberately slow lap around the room, arms firmly crossed, trying to look everywhere but at him. Unfortunately, it was impossible to ignore the room's only other occupant. _Maybe... maybe he really is Tai_, she thought. She didn't know _precisely_ how much they knew about her, after all, and they certainly wouldn't be interested in trivialities like hats and hair clips.

She turned to give him another appraising look. If this was Tai Kamiya, the years had not been very kind to him. He had finally cut his hair, so at least he didn't look quite as wild and shaggy as he had when they were teenagers, but the mahogany brown nest was unmistakably peppered with flecks of grey. His clothes had a distinctly worn look, and were creased and wrinkled as if he often slept in them. His mouth sat crookedly on his face, even when he wasn't smiling. Most of all, he looked tired and strained, reminding her quite forcibly of Matt's father- at least, the last time she had seen the elder Ishida.

Nevertheless, as she stared at him, she became more and more convinced that this was, in fact, Tai. She couldn't quite place what it was about him that drew her to this conclusion. Maybe it was the tentative, pleading way he was looking at her, as if an echo of the boy she had known so well was reaching out to her across the years, asking her to trust him. And whatever else he had become in the time they had been apart, she reasoned, there still had to be some small part of him that was the Tai Kamiya she had known so long ago.

"All right." She tried to look and sound sincere. "Tai."

She turned back to sit stiffly on the sofa directly to his left. Even if she was willing to acknowledge him, she wasn't terribly pleased to see him. After all, if he wasn't a demon, it meant their real torturer was still coming, and she couldn't stand the thought of waiting even longer for something like that. Plus, this was... well, it was _Tai_. Not that they had parted on bad terms or anything, it had just been so long since they had actually talked to each other. What did you say to someone after being separated by half a lifetime of experiences?

It was too awkward. Especially since he was just _sitting_ there, staring at her. She could feel his eyes on her as keenly as if they were a brand. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but couldn't find the words. The silence stretched across the gap between them, filling her ears with an irritating buzzing.

"It's been a long time, hasn't it?" he asked finally and, Sora thought, rather lamely. "What have you been up to these days, anyw-"

"No offense," she said, "but I don't think I feel much like talking right now."

Tai momentarily looked as if he had been slapped in the face, but the shock was quickly replaced by indignation. "Well excuse me, Your Highness, I was just trying to make conversation! You know, break the ice, be polite- unlike you seem to be capable of. Or do you still believe I'm not really me?"

"No, I... I'm sorry, Tai." She tried to sound it, too. He hadn't really done anything wrong, after all. She could, for now, give him the benefit of the doubt. She would be civil as a privilege to him, at least until he gave her cause to revoke it. Of course, the way he was going, he didn't have long anyway.

She sighed, and made an effort to at least look him in the face. "I guess I'm just a little out of practice with being polite."

Tai saw her mouth curve into a smile and heard her voice soften, but he couldn't help noticing that her eyes retained their hardness.

"Well then, I guess I'll just have to be polite for the both of us," he said, crossing his arms over the arm of his couch and cracking a tentative smile. "So, how do you tell what a torturer looks like, anyway, since you seem like such an expert?"

She studied her hands folded in her lap for a few moments before speaking. "You can tell a torturer," she said primly, "by the frightened look on their face."

The Keeper of Courage bristled. "Afraid? Me? I think you're forgetting who you're talking to!"

Sora regarded him coolly. "Deny it all you want, Tai, but I've seen my face in the mirror often enough to know what I'm talking about."

"Mirror..." His eyes swept the room hungrily for his reflection before he remembered where he was. "Right. Never mind." He was starting to feel uncomfortable in Sora's presence. Did he really look scared? It was hard for him to tell, but he knew he would much rather look at his reflection and try to judge for himself than have Sora tell him what he looked like.

After a few minutes of pretending to keep himself occupied by staring at the patterns in the carpet, he tried to jump-start another conversation.

"Hey, Sora, did you and Matt ever...?"

"No."

For once, he was grateful for her blunt replies.

"Well, what do you... er, what _did _you do for a living?" he prodded. "Me, I worked for-"

"No offense, but do you ever stop talking?" she asked, her voice tinged with annoyance. "At least take a walk around the hallway or something, so I can have some peace."

He balked again. This was not how he pictured a reunion with Sora at all. "The, uh... the door's locked."

"Pity," she said, turning back to stare at the ceiling.

"Look, what's your problem?" he demanded. "I know we haven't seen each other since high school, but I know we can get along here. You know me, I've always been an easygoing guy, and that hasn't changed. Let's just try to make the best of this situa-."

"Tai, your mouth!" Sora shrieked.

Tai's hands immediately jumped to his face. "What? What is it?"

"Can't you keep it still?" she asked, wincing. "You're always making these weird faces when you talk. It's grotesque."

Tai lowered his hands and stared at her incredulously. "Geez, sorry! But how am I supposed to know what my mouth is doing?"

Sora scowled and turned her back to him. "That's your problem, Tai, you have no sense of... perception. You talk about being polite, then you can't even control your own face. Do you have any idea of how you look to other people? Well, you're not alone here, and you don't have any right to inflict that on me."

Tai was becoming increasingly desperate for something he could see his reflection in. He had never been vain by nature, quite the opposite, he had always thought, but Sora's judgments against him were quickly becoming more than he could stand. And the way she _looked _at him... each word he fumbled over seemed to sharpen the hard-set lines around her mouth and eyes, until Tai found it almost as difficult to make eye contact with her as he had with the valet.

He sighed. The room was still stiflingly hot, not to mention he was growing tired of looking at it. The ambiguous lighting made everything look flat and severe, and it was giving him a headache. He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and cupping his face in his hands, the only way he could think of to block it from his vision, but it was no use. The room seemed to have burned itself into his retinas. What wouldn't he give for an interruption, some temporary reprieve to distract him from this room, from Sora, from himself.

As if on cue, Tai heard the door open and the rustle of the valet's wings. As he started to raise his head, he heard the frightened voice of the room's newest occupant, presumably addressing him.

"No, don't look up! I know what you're hiding!" The voice, and the person it belonged to, was unmistakably female. She was covering her own eyes with her hands, as if she couldn't bear to look at him. "I know you don't have a face anymore!"

In spite of herself, the new person peered though her delicate fingers, and Tai found himself meeting the wide-eyed gaze of yet another familiar face. Dressed impeccably in a long, fitted dress, makeup expertly applied, honey-colored bangs framing her face, there was no doubt in his mind that this was Mimi Tachikawa.

As she realized who she was looking at, he saw her expression morph from terror to confusion to happy recognition in the space of a few seconds.

"Tai!" she smiled. "I thought... I thought someone was playing a nasty trick on me. And Sora! How wonderful! Is anyone else coming?" she addressed this question to the valet.

"No, madam. This room is at maximum capacity," he said in his booming voice.

"Oh!" Mimi exclaimed, continued to look pleased. "Then we're staying together, the three of us." She giggled, and Tai couldn't help but think how foolish she sounded.

"I don't really see what's so funny," he said, hoping the annoyance came through in his voice.

She turned to him, continuing to smile. "It's just this room. The sofas, they're so hideous. And look how they've been arranged!"

_Typical Mimi_, he thought. _The first thing she criticizes about the afterlife would be the decor_. At least it seemed _she _hadn't changed in the course of twenty years.

Meanwhile, Mimi hadn't missed a beat. "I suppose there's one for each of us. Is that mine?" She indicated the only unoccupied couch, the vivid green one against the right wall. "But you can't expect me to sit there! It doesn't match my dress at all!"

Sora looked at her with a friendliness in her eyes that had been quite absent until now. "Would you prefer mine, Mimi?"

"The claret-colored one?" Mimi seemed to be sizing up the offered seat. "That's sweet of you, Sora, but... no, I don't think that would be any better. Nor the rust-colored one." She lowered herself onto the green cushions, smoothing the wrinkles out of her dress as she did so. "We've got to take what comes to us, don't you agree, so I'll stick with this one. There's no use in worrying, anyway."

"Do you require me any longer, madam?" the valet interjected from the doorway.

"Hmm? Oh, no, you can go," said Mimi dismissively, barely even looking at him. "I'll ring when I want you."

Once again, the valet left as silently as he had entered. The door clicked shut with a certain finality that Tai couldn't help but notice.

Mimi continued shifting her gaze from Tai to Sora, beaming gratefully. "I'm really so glad that we're staying together. I'm sure we'll enjoy each other's company, although I can't imagine a stranger place to meet up."

"Well, the room is a lot better with you in it, Mimi," Sora said pointedly. It was difficult for Tai to tell whether or not Mimi had heard her.

"Still," Mimi continued, "I wish the decor was more to my taste. This place could really use some curtains, or paintings on the walls. Maybe some flowers on the mantel." She looked wistfully at the statue. "I used to love flowers, didn't I?"

For a moment, Tai thought that she expected one of them to answer her, but she started speaking again before he could even think of a reasonable response.

"But I don't suppose they'd last long, would they? It's so stuffy here. I'm sure Palmon wouldn't like it either. She'd say she was wilting."

It was the first time any of them had mentioned one of their digimon partners out loud since arriving, and once again Tai's heart ached at the thought of Agumon's absence. The girls seemed similarly lost in thought: Mimi's eyes were large and tragic, while Sora looked pensive, almost guilty. It seemed like a long time before any of them spoke again.

"Well, I... I suppose we'll just have to try to make the best of it all," Mimi said, seeming to shrug off enough sadness to sound halfway cheery again. "So tell me, how long have the two of you been here?"

"I've been here about a week," Sora said quietly. "What about you?"

"Oh, I'm quite recent," said Mimi, as if she were discussing her induction into a new country club. "Yesterday. In fact, the service isn't quite over."

Tai was about to ask how she could have known anything about her own funeral, and for that matter, how she and Sora could know how long they had been here without day or night, clocks or watches, or any other obvious way to note the passage of time, but he wasn't even sure that Mimi would have heard him. She was staring at a corner of the room, eyes focused on something only she could see.

"There's Michael, and Julie," she said in a far-away voice. "Betamon, Floramon... my, but Catherine looks frightful. She's not crying, but I can't blame her- tears always mess up one's face, don't they? Catherine was my closest friend, you know- I mean, after I left Japan."

"Did you suffer much?" Sora asked.

"No, I don't think so. I was unconscious for most of it. Pneumonia," she added. "Ah, there. It's over now. They're all leaving the cemetery. They were quite a crowd. Goodbye, now. Thank you for coming. Bye..."

Mimi seemed to come back to herself, turning her gaze back onto Tai. "My husband stayed home, you know. He was practically sick with grief himself, the dear. What about the two of you? How did you... get to be here?"

"The gas stove," Sora said, her voice emotionless.

"Twelve bullets through the chest," said Tai automatically. He saw the look of horror on Mimi's face, and quickly added, "Sorry! I... I guess I'm not good company among the dead."

He had hoped that this apology would help, but it seemed to have quite the opposite effect.

"Please don't say that word!" Mimi cried, flinching. "It's so very crude. If we're going to talk about this... turn of events, let's call ourselves something else, like... like... absentees. That sounds much better, doesn't it?"

Tai shrugged. "Fine. Whatever."

"Now Tai, how long have you been... absent?" Mimi pressed. She put Tai in mind of the hostess of a formal party at which all the guests had suddenly and violently contracted food poisoning, and she was determined to keep the polite conversation going regardless of how many people threw up on her shoes. The mental image caused him to stifle a smile while considering her question.

"About a month." The answer came to his lips without him really being able to say how, but he knew it was true- at least, that was how much time had passed on Earth since he had entered this room.

_A whole month?_ He could hardly believe it. It certainly hadn't felt that long on this end. Was the time difference similar to that surreal hour he and Koromon had spent in Odaiba after they had defeated Etemon? Did time really pass more quickly elsewhere?

Meanwhile, Mimi was nodding. "Did you both stay in Tokyo?"

"I moved to Kyoto for a while," said Sora, "but I didn't stay there long. I had a place in Shibuya. I was a postal clerk there."

Mimi looked surprised. "Really? Oh. That's... well, that's nice," she said.

"I was in Rio," said Tai wistfully.

"Rio de Janeiro? Oh, how wonderful!" Mimi exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "I never pictured you as much of an international traveler, Tai! I hear Rio is very nice. I always wanted to go on vacation there, but I never got the chance."

"Yeah, well," Tai said, "I went for the soccer, and when that didn't pan out, I just... stayed." He glanced at Sora. She was staring at Mimi, and Tai tried to dredge up an idea of where Mimi might have spent her adult life. Her accent sounded a little strange. "What about you? I sort of lost track after you went to America."

"Oh really, it's not that complicated. I was in New York for all of high school and college, except for the few semesters I spend abroad in Europe. I moved to France after I graduated- Paris, of course- and I've been there ever since."

"Yeah, not complicated at all," said Tai dryly. He was starting to feel irritated again. "Well, anyway, it's been fun, but would you mind if we cut it short? I have some thinking to do."

Both girls stared at him. Sora looked vaguely hopeful, but Mimi looked aghast.

"What are you saying?" she cried. "What could be more important than catching up? We haven't seen each other in who knows how long, and you want to just sit in the corner and keep to yourself?"

"Yeah? So what if I do?" Tai demanded.

"Don't you get it? This-" she gestured around her- "is what happens when people become absent! They get to meet old friends, and relatives and things!"

"Yeah, charming old friends- one with a hole in the middle of his face," Tai said, sharper than he had intended. When Mimi didn't say anything, he continued, somewhat apologetically.

"Look, there are just some things I need to think through," he explained. "I want to try to set my afterlife in order, make peace with the people I left behind. Is there anything wrong with that? You two would do well to do the same, anyway."

"I don't need to," said Sora dismissively. "There aren't any loose ends left in my life. It tidied itself up nicely without any help from me."

"And how do you know that?" Tai asked, the anger rising in his voice. "How did you-" he glared at Mimi- "see your own funeral? How can either of you know_ anything_ about what you left behind?"

"Maybe you would too," Sora sniffed, "if you stopped flapping your mouth long enough to _think_ about it."

Tai rounded on Mimi, who looked scared at his sudden outburst, but encouraging. "Do you have anyone down there who still thinks about you, or places that are still important to you? If you do, it'll come."

_Thanks, Mimi, that really clears things up_, he thought to himself. Frustrated and antsy, he started pacing the length of the room from his couch to the door. So what, he was supposed to think of people back on Earth that he still had ties with? Hadn't he tried that earlier? But, thinking back on his time alone here, he had been focused on the grief of losing Agumon, who he already knew was not among the living anymore. His mind had barely passed over the other DigiDestined, but they had become distant to him so long ago, he didn't think that his ties to them would really matter at this point. Would his co-workers count? It wasn't as if he really had a family anymore...

With a sudden jolt of guilt, he remembered- Kari. His sister was still down there, and he hadn't even spared her a thought since arriving here! But now as he pictured her face, murmured her name, she came into clear focus in front of his eyes, and he could see her as if she was on the other side of a camera lens. The room and the other girls seemed to fade from his vision as he used this impossible, wonderful connection with the world he had left behind.

"I see her, I see Kari," he said, not sure who he was speaking to. "She's at the barracks. She's trying to look through the gate. The guards won't let her in, and of course she wouldn't use Gatomon to get past them. She doesn't know I'm... absent, not yet... but I think she suspects. She's wearing black already. It makes her look like a shadow. She's not crying, she's... she's too strong for that, but she has those big, tragic eyes. She's such a saint." He laughed humorlessly. "How I hate that martyred expression of hers!"

"Tai!" Mimi's cry snapped him back to his current surroundings. He looked at her. She was standing over him, her wide eyes boring into his face.

"What?" he asked, alarmed.

"You're sitting on my sofa."

He looked down. He was indeed sitting on stiff, green cushions.

"Sorry," he muttered, getting back on his feet. He hadn't even realized he had sat down.

Mimi reclaimed her sofa and smoothed out her dress again. "No, it's all right. You looked so far away. Sorry to disturb you."

Tai crossed the room back to his own couch. A familiar unease was squirming through his stomach, and he noticed he was sweating profusely. "Ugh, it's so hot," he muttered without really caring, wanting to re-establish some connection with Earth. "I used to spend my nights in the newspaper office, and it was like this."

The vision came more quickly this time. "It _is _like this. It's night right now."

"Yes," said Mimi, sounding far away again. "It must be after midnight. Catherine's undressing. Time passes so quickly down there!"

"They've sealed my apartment," Sora said dully. "It's pitch black and empty."

"The men have unbuttoned their shirts and rolled up their sleeves," Tai continued to himself. "Their digimon are panting. They have a Penguinmon, but he can only do so much to offset the temperature. The air stinks- wet fur and B.O. and cigarette smoke."

"How uncouth," Mimi said distractedly, as if she were in a trance. "How did you stand it?"

"I used to like living that way," he answered in the same slow, expressionless voice. "That office was my second home. It was a place for a man to just be a man, you know?"

"That just proves our tastes differ. Maybe it was a good thing I never went to Rio; I prefer men with a little more refinement. What about you, Sora? Which do you prefer?"

"Oh, I don't much care for men either way," said Sora.

They sat silent for a few minutes, lost in their own visions, united temporarily by their desire to rejoin the world they left behind.

"This doesn't make sense to me anymore," said Mimi after a while. "I can't imagine why I'm here with you two, why they would put us together like this."

"A fluke, probably," said Tai, coming back to himself. The newspaper office could wait. He had been wondering the same thing, and now found himself eager to discuss it with the other two. "They put us in rooms as they can, in order of arrival."

Sora laughed harshly, and Tai turned to her. "What's so funny?"

"You!" she said, her mouth set into a hard smile. "The way you talk about flukes. Like they left any of this to chance! I guess you have to reassure yourself somehow."

"Well, why don't you enlighten us, if you're so sure?" Tai shot back.

"But I'm not," she insisted. "I'm really as much in the dark as you are. But I'm not going to delude myself."

"What do you-" he began, but she cut him off.

"How about you, Mimi? Why do you think you're here?"

"Well, I've just said, haven't I?" Mimi said, sounding confused. "I don't have any idea. Honestly, I think all of this might be some sort of horrible mistake. Don't smile," she implored Sora, who was continuing to look cruelly amused. "I mean, just think about how many people become absent every day. They must be sorted out by... well, nobody, really- minimum-wage employees who don't know how to do their job properly. If they made a mistake in my case, mightn't they have done the same for the two of you? And isn't it better to think that they did, anyway? Even though you'd think they'd be a little more careful with us, after we went to the bother to save two worlds."

Sora laughed again, and though Tai desperately wanted to agree that yes, this was all just a big misunderstanding, Mimi's last statement stirred something in the back of his mind.

"It's not a mistake," he said quietly. "That's what the valet said when I asked him. We were left to him because we're DigiDestined. But," he added, getting an idea, "he also told me that he usually deals with digimon. Well, digimon don't die, right? They get reconfigured, and are reborn in Primary Village. Maybe, because we're so closely tied to the Digital World, they decided that we should be reconfigured too!"

"That would make sense!" said Mimi. "So then this room..."

"... Is some sort of waiting room, while they figure out what we'll be coming back as!" Tai finished in a rush of triumph. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed crystal-clear that this theory was correct. He had been worried for nothing. He would be reincarnated as a digimon. And if he were lucky, he would get to see Agumon again, even if he might not recognize or remember him...

"Are you really that dense?" Sora's voice cut across his thoughts sharply.

"Why couldn't it be true? We don't know- how many other DigiDestined have become absent before us? They could already be back in the Digital World! Heck, they could be right next door, waiting for the same thing, and we'd never know!" He wanted to believe it so badly that he could picture it: Izzy, Ken, and Yolei together in a room like this one, having some deep technical discussion about computers; TK and Matt, spending their last few hours as brothers; Cody, meditating like some sort of tiny Buddha. But the images in his mind were not like the visions he had had earlier, of Kari and his newspaper office. He was picturing each DigiDestined as he had last seen them, high-school age.

"That settles it, then. It's mere chance that the three of us ended up in the same room," said Mimi decisively. Tai found himself nodding feebly.

"Mere chance," scoffed Sora again. "Oh yes. The heat is chance. That statue is chance. The sofas are all chance. Well, I don't believe it. It was all arranged like this for a reason. Try changing it, you'll see."

"Oh yeah?" Tai got to his feet, desperate to prove her wrong. He seized his sofa by the armrests and pulled.

Nothing happened.

"They don't move?" Mimi asked as Tai sat back down in disgust. "But really, it's so hideous. All of the angles. I always hated angles. So, what are you saying? It was all laid out beforehand?"

Sora had a superior look on her face. "Yes. And they put us together on purpose."

"But why?"

"How should I know? We've all been here for a while, and nothing's happened yet. Maybe they're waiting for us to do... something."

"They're expecting something from us? Ugh." Mimi said, wrinkling her nose. "I hate the idea of anyone expecting anything from me. It always makes me want to do the opposite."

"How can you hate it? You don't even know what 'it' is!"

"But it sounds like you do!" Tai blurted at Sora. "You've hinted at it enough, so you might as well let us in on it too."

"I told you already," Sora shrugged. "I don't know anything about it. Still, if we only had enough guts to tell..."

"Tell what?"

"Mimi!" Sora said suddenly. "You were the one who wanted to catch up, so tell me some more about yourself."

"Oh, really, what else is there to tell?" Mimi asked. "You know all about me already from when we were kids!"

"I want to know what you've done to be here," Sora said, "assuming there were no mistakes." Even though her tone was casual, there was something about the way she said the last phrase that made the smile fade from Mimi's face. To Tai, it looked like the younger woman wasn't going to continue the conversation, but Sora continued to look steadily at her until it seemed Mimi was only answering in order to fill the silence.

"Well, honestly, who can say? I mean, what I did after college was trivial, really. I had a satisfactory life, traveled around a bit, met some fascinating people, but the money couldn't last forever, you know. I fell on some hard times a few years after I moved to Paris, but I didn't give up. I was terribly poor when I met a man who wanted to marry me, and I said yes, of course. He was very well off, and a kind old soul. Old enough to be my father, if you must know, but it didn't matter. We were happily married for ten years. Then two years ago, I became reacquainted with the man I was fated to love. We knew it the moment we laid eyes on each other after all those years apart. He asked me to run away with him, but I refused. Then I caught pneumonia and it finished me. That's all. Where did I go wrong? I suppose I shouldn't have sacrificed my youth to a man twice my age, but really, could that be called a sin?"

"No way," said Tai. "And do you think it's a crime to stand up for what you believe in?"

"Of course not!" Mimi said, looking aghast. "Is that what happened to you? What about soccer?"

"Hold on. I said the soccer thing didn't work out. I tore some ligaments pretty badly when I was twenty, and that ended it. So, I went back to school. Majored in political science. I wanted to... I dunno, be a politician, or work for the United Nations or something. Well, that didn't work out either. So, I ended up running a pacifist newspaper down there. It got to be pretty popular. Then a civil war broke out. I was approached by both sides, but I had legitimate conscientious objections! I shouldn't have had to fight, but try telling them that. Everyone was watching me, wondering what I would do. So I made a stand. I crossed my arms and they shot me. Did I do anything wrong?"

"No, no!" Mimi cried. "Quite the opposite. You were a-"

"A regular hero," said Sora, a trace of irony in her voice. "Funny, I never imagined you as the pacifist type."

He turned to look at her, scowling. "What's that supposed to mean? Just because I lose my temper sometimes? We've always fought for peace. I just started doing it a little differently. The pen is mightier than the sword and all that, you know?"

"It just shows he's matured," said Mimi. "It's a change for the better, really."

Sora sniffed. "I suppose. And what about Kari?"

Tai glanced down at his lap before answering her, a familiar unease stirring in the pit of his stomach. "She had been teaching in Shinjuku. Primary school. But she got really sick a few years back, and couldn't keep managing by herself. Our parents died in a car crash five or six years before that and didn't leave much to either of us, and she never married. I paid all of her hospital bills, and she moved down to Rio to live with me after that. She helped me out a bit at home, and I spared her from having to go to the poorhouse," he said simply.

"You see?" Mimi said. "We're all perfectly innocent victims of circumstance!"

Sora rolled her eyes. "Please. What's the point of this play-acting, trying to fool each other? Of _course_ we were meant to be here. We're all guilty of the same thing."

"Don't!" Tai jumped to his feet. Panic surged through him as he realized where Sora was heading. He could sense the words she was about to speak as if they were millions of gallons of water on the other side of a dam. As long as those words remained unspoken, he could stay here, dry and safe, ignoring what lay on the other side, even as Sora was making hairline cracks appear before his eyes. "I think you should reconsider before you say more," he said, trying to temper his sudden outburst.

But when Sora looked at him, he saw that his reluctance had only fueled her desire to keep picking away at the one thing that was keeping them from the flood on the other side. "All three of us," she said with a slow smile. "Criminals. Murderers. There's no point in trying to deny it. We're in hell, kids. They never make mistakes, and people aren't damned for nothing."

"How... how dare you?" Mimi demanded, her voice a dangerous whisper, all pretense of politeness gone. "Stop it! Stop-"

"In hell!" Sora crowed, cutting across Mimi's protests. "Damned souls- that's us! Me, and the noble pacifist over there, and even you, Mimi! Don't pretend; you knew as soon as you walked in!"

"Shut your mouth, dammit!" Tai shouted, but it was too late. The dam had burst, and the truth that he had known ever since he came here but refused to recognize came crashing into the room. It covered the floor, stained the walls and ceilings, took up residence on his couch, permeated the very air so that he felt he was drowning in it. This room had been his only refuge, but now he felt himself forced to acknowledge this ugly, audacious fact, sprawled out and naked for them to see at last, and there was no escape anymore.

For a while, no one spoke. He noticed that the other two were standing as well, and all three of them had all moved closer together into a loose triangle in the middle of the room, although he couldn't say when that had happened. Mimi looked like he felt: drained and disheveled. Sora surveyed the two of them with an unsettling calmness and a look of dawning comprehension.

"Well, well," she said after what could have been a moment or a millennium. "I understand now, why they put us together. It's so simple."

When neither of the other two said anything, she continued. "Look at the facts. No physical torments- you'll agree? And yet we're in hell."

Tai forced himself to nod. She was right. It was no use lying to himself anymore.

"It's very economical, really." Sora was smirking now. "Self-serve."

"What are you talking about?" Mimi asked, slightly breathless.

"Each person," said Sora, casting her gaze around to meet their eyes in turn, "is supposed to act as a torturer to the two others."

It took several seconds for this statement to sink in.

"What? No... no!" Tai sputtered. "How can they expect- we've known each other for ages! They have to know that I wouldn't do that to either of you! How could I want to? How could _any_ of us?"

"But that's it, it has to be," Sora said pragmatically. "I don't think we have much of a choice in the matter. They must've known what they were doing. No mistakes, remember?"

"I can't believe that. Even though we're here, we still have free will. They didn't take that from us at the entrance!" Tai insisted. He clenched his fists, suddenly combative again. "We have the choice not to, so we won't. It's as simple as that. No one can make us do it if we refuse."

"But what can we do?" Mimi asked him plaintively, and Tai felt a rush of pleasure to know that she was looking to him to give them direction, even though they hadn't seen each other in twenty years, even though he had handed over the role of leader of the DigiDestined to Davis when he passed his goggles to him.

"I'll tell you," he said, looking at both women seriously. "If they mean for us to torture each other, we need to stop interacting with each other. We're going to stay in our own corners and keep to ourselves. Ignore the other two. It's the only way, if we're going to be... tempted, or whatever, to play their sick game otherwise." He walked back over to his couch and heard the others do the same.

"See?" he said, once they were all sitting. "It won't be so bad. We each have our own thoughts to keep us company. We could all do with some self-reflection. I think I could keep occupied for a thousand years, easily."

"Do I have to stay quiet too?" Mimi asked, pouting slightly.

Tai nodded. "Yes. We all do. And that way, we'll work out our own salvation. Sound like a plan?"

"Fine," said Sora indifferently.

"All right," said Mimi uncertainly.

"Great," Tai attempted a smile and tried not to sound awkward. "Well. I guess... goodbye then."


	3. Stage Three: Bargaining

Digimon Existential Theater Presents: No Exit  
>aka, "Hell is Other DigiDestined"<p>

* * *

><p>It was difficult at first, finding a position that was both marginally comfortable and allowed him to look where he could not see the room's other occupants. Tai's couch was too short for him to lie down on his back, and too narrow to fold his legs and roll over on his side. Eventually he found a compromise, leaning against one high couch arm and propping his legs up against the other.<p>

He was more or less facing the fireplace and the statue, but the bronzework still made him uneasy. It was strange... he could have sworn when he looked at it before that it was in the shape of a single person, but now it looked more like two, their bodies pressed into one another's as if they were fused together, lumpy flesh twisting and melting into one ghastly being. He shivered despite the heat of the room, and abandoned the idea of using the statue as a focal point. Instead, he made a one-hundred and eighty degree turn so that he was staring at the corner made by the ceiling and the walls his and Mimi's couches were backed against.

But if Tai found it difficult not to look at the others, it proved even more difficult not to _think _about them. He couldn't help it, and he knew it wasn't just a function of the room layout. His mind was still buzzing over what his fellow DigiDestined had said in the short time they had spent together here, and these new impressions mixed with his memories of them from childhood until he found himself trying to reconcile the two disjointed elements together into complete pictures of their adult selves.

He thought back on Mimi's development during their first adventure in the Digital World, of her eventual selflessness in abandoning her station as princess to revive Shogunmon, the anguish she had gone through when the Dark Masters were reconfiguring their Digimon friends left and right, and the strength she had shown in gathering allies to help fight Piedmon.

_But she was still Mimi though all of that_, he told himself. _The same old girl in the silly pink hat. Prim and proper, a little spacey, a little spoiled, but genuine to a fault. And really, isn't she the same now as she was back then?_ Nothing she had said or done in here, damned soul or not, could change his perception of her, because he had known her so well.

Sora, however, was another story. He couldn't believe that this woman and the girl he'd had a crush on since high school were really the same person.

_A crush on since high school_... Tai had been trying to ignore this fact since he had laid eyes on her, but now the thought trickled unbidden into the forefront of his mind. He hadn't so much as thought of her for what must've been nearly a decade by now, but seeing her again, talking to her, just knowing that she was there in the same room with him, was enough to bring the memories flooding back into sharp and painful focus.

He recalled their preschool friendship, the years they spent on the same soccer team, their adventures as DigiDestined. All the times he had made her laugh, all the times he had made her cry. The feeling that just seemed to hit him one day that he'd like to take their relationship to the next level, and the anxiety and embarrassment that came with all of his feeble attempts to catch her attention. The abandonment he felt when she started spending less time in soccer and more time on tennis and flower arranging. The determination of wanting to reconnect with her and give romance a try anyway. The numbing pain of seeing her waiting for Matt at his concert, cookies in hand, knowing that he'd missed his chance, that he'd never even had one to begin with. The disillusionment of losing his two best friends to each other, even as he put on appearances that he was happy for them. The secret jealousy and anger that felt so justified, yet made him so ashamed at the same time... while Sora certainly wasn't the only reason he had left Japan, the feelings and sour memories she had given him were certainly large contributing factors. Tai had hoped that the distance of thousands of miles would help him forget, and it had certainly worked eventually, and for a while. But her being here now, when he thought he was finally free of her... it was almost too much for him to bear.

Even more ridiculous was the way she was acting, how she looked at him, how she treated both him and Mimi. It was if she had undergone a complete personality change. Could twenty years really change a person that much? He couldn't help but wonder how much _he _had changed, without really being aware of it.

_What would Agumon say about all of this?_ he asked himself. In the past, when he was confronted with a problem or difficult choice, he would often consult Agumon. His digimon partner had always seemed to know the right thing to say to get him to see the best way forward, as if he were a compass to guide Tai through life. Now, of course, he could only guess at what the little orange dinosaur would tell him. Tai could never ask him for advice again.

He supposed... well, he supposed that Agumon would be able to see past all of Tai's hurt feelings and self-pity about Sora, and would mourn more for the loss of a good friend and ally than anything else. And realistically, after all of those years as leader of the DigiDestined, shouldn't Tai be able to do the same? Shouldn't he be thinking of what their current situation meant to the three of them as a team, and try brainstorming ways to help each other through it?

_Then again, isn't it a moot point anyway?_ a small voice in the back of his head asked. Tai couldn't help but think it sounded like Sora whispering in his ear, even though he knew she hadn't stirred from her own sofa. _She doesn't want to talk to you, _the voice continued,_ and besides, you were the one that suggested everybody keep to themselves._

The voice was right, of course. Not talking to each other was the right decision, based on all that had passed between them since they had arrived here. He supposed, then, that he should take his own advice, and keep himself occupied with more productive musings.

Meanwhile. Sora sat on her couch, humming quietly to herself and tapping her foot impatiently. She glanced at Tai, who looked lost in thought. It was admirable, she had to admit to herself, what he was doing. Trying to place walls around them so they wouldn't set each other off. Hadn't that been what she had tried to do when she first arrived? But things were different now. It wouldn't work for her, now that _she_ was in the room too. As long as the two of them were together, Sora knew she had to be the one to tear down the wall keeping them apart.

She watched Mimi for a while, who seemed just as restless and agitated as Sora herself was. The Keeper of the Crest of Sincerity kept crossing and uncrossing her legs, looking around the room, smoothing her dress, and trying to catch Tai's eye, none of which seemed to alleviate her boredom. Finally, a thought seemed to occur to her, and she began rifling through her purse, a crease appearing on her pretty face as she did so.

"Excuse me, do you have a mirror?" Mimi directed this question at Tai, who didn't answer her and didn't take his eyes off of the ceiling. Mimi's frown deepened. "Even if you're not talking, you might still lend me a mirror."

It was not too late to reconsider, Sora thought. Free will, and all that. But as surely as she knew she shouldn't, she knew that she would.

"Don't worry, Mimi. I have one." Sora stood up and felt around in her jeans' pockets for her makeup mirror while Mimi looked expectantly at her.

"It's gone!" she exclaimed curiously when she came up empty. "They must've taken it from me when I got here. I never noticed..."

She looked at Mimi again, who suddenly looked faint. "How tiresome," she sighed, swaying a little in her seat. "When I can't see myself, sometimes I start to wonder if I really exist. I pat myself to make sure, but it doesn't help much."

Sora smirked. "You're lucky. I'm always aware of myself, at least in the back of my mind, no matter what I'm doing."

"Yes, but everything that goes on in your head is so vague, isn't it?" Mimi mused. "It makes me sleepy to think about. I have six full-length mirrors in my bedroom. I see them now, but they don't see me. They're reflecting the walls, the floor, everything, but I'm not there. How empty they are! When I talked to people I always tried to keep my reflection in sight, so I could watch myself talk. It helped, seeing me as others did. And now... oh dear." She touched her cheek delicately. "My lipstick is all crooked, I'm sure of it. This won't do- I simply can't go without a mirror forever and ever!"

Sora let Mimi speak her piece. There was still time to change her mind. Biyomon, she thought suddenly, wouldn't have wanted her to do this. But then again, when was the last time she had considered Biyomon's opinion?

"Come sit by me, Mimi," she said at last. "You can use me as your mirror."

Mimi looked at Tai, who continued to ignore them. Sora chuckled, "Don't worry about him. He doesn't count."

"But-" Mimi looked uncertain. "We'll hurt each other. You said so yourself!"

Sora chuckled again. She kept it light and warm, an inviting sound. "Do I look like I want to hurt you? Have I ever wanted to hurt you?" She patted the cushions next to her. "There's just enough room for two on these things. Come on. Sit down."

Mimi smiled shyly and strode the length of the room, and Sora smiled to herself. Each step the other woman took towards her was another piece of the wall crumbling away, and soon there would be nothing left.

When Mimi was seated next to her, Sora spoke again. "Now, look into my eyes. Tell me what you see."

Mimi leaned forward, her soft brown eyes inches from Sora's face. To Sora, they seemed to eclipse nearly everything else in the room.

"Oh, there I am!" Mimi exclaimed. "But I'm so tiny I can't see myself properly."

"I can though. Every inch of you. So ask me questions and I'll answer them truthfully, as well as any mirror."

Mimi looked uncertain again. Her eyes slid off of Sora's face and her head whipped over her shoulder. "Please, Tai. Isn't our chatter bothering you?"

"It doesn't matter what he thinks. Like I said, he doesn't count," Sora said, staring haughtily at Tai over Mimi's shoulder. He hadn't moved at all since she had last looked at him, but his expression had changed subtly. Now he looked like he was _trying_ to look lost in thought.

Sora adjusted her features to a smile as Mimi turned to face her again. "Now, ask me questions, and pretend he's not even there. We're by ourselves, for all intents and purposes."

"Well, all right. Let's see... are my lips all right?"

Sora considered for a moment. "Mmmm... no, they're a bit smudged."

"I knew it!" Mimi cried. "Luckily, no one has seen me." She reached into her purse and pulled out a tube of lipstick. She then attempted to use the tiny reflections in Sora's eyes to apply it.

"Wait. Let me help," Sora said, reaching out. Mimi's hand was soft and slightly cool, despite the heat of the room. It yielded to her touch almost at once, allowing Sora to guide the lipstick around the line of her mouth.

"There, that's quite good," Sora said when she had finished, admiring her handiwork.

"As good as when I came in?"

"Much better. More severe. Your mouth looks... diabolical that way."

Mimi recoiled slightly, eyes wide. "And you say you like it?" she asked, leaning toward Sora's eyes try to get a better look. "How maddening, not being able to see properly for myself!"

"I'm telling you, you look lovely, Mimi," Sora said with conviction.

"I... I don't know. How can I trust your taste? I'm sure it isn't the same as mine."

"I have your taste," Sora insisted, "because we're such good friends. Didn't we used to do this when we were teenagers? Isn't it nicer using a friend than looking in a glass?"

Mimi bit her lip and looked at her lap. "I don't know. It scares me, somehow. My reflection never did that. It was something I had tamed. But I look into your eyes, and my reflection sinks into your pupils and it becomes something else. That didn't happen when we were younger. I guess times have changed, haven't they? You're..." she paused, her eyes scanning the room as if expecting an appropriate word to jump out from behind a couch or walk through the door. "You're different."

"Sometimes different is good," Sora offered.

Mimi gave her a weak smile. "I didn't mean... well, I'm different, too. I don't make friends easily with women anymore, for example."

"You don't make friends with postal clerks, you mean," said Sora waspishly. _Nice try, Mimi, but I can read you like a book_. A vicious thought struck her, and she suddenly felt compelled to act on it.

"What's that?" she asked, faking concern. "That little red spot on the bottom of your cheek. Could it be a pimple?"

"A pimple- where?" cried Mimi, eyes locked on Sora's once again, feeling her own face frantically.

Sora chuckled again, but the sound had lost some of its warmth. "There isn't a pimple, dear. Not a trace of one. So what, if your mirror starts telling lies? Isn't it better than if I covered my eyes, and both Tai and I refused to look at you? All of your beauty would be wasted. But I wouldn't do that to you. I can't help looking at you. And I'll be nice from now on. Ever so nice, if you can be nice to me in return."

Mimi looked at Sora as if she had never seen her before. When she spoke, her voice was a whisper. "Sora, are... are you attracted to me?"

Sora nodded languidly, leaning toward her prey as she did so. _Almost there!_ "Ever since we were little," she confessed. "Even though I didn't know it at the time. Surely you felt it too. And now we're both here: damned souls, adults, able to act on our feelings, and all of our dirty little impulses."

Mimi swallowed. She wasn't meeting Sora's eyes anymore. "But," she said quietly, "I wish he would notice me too."

Sora felt like she had smashed headlong into a brick wall. "Oh. I see... of course." _Dammit._ The next instant she was on her feet. "It's because he's a MAN!" She strode over to Tai's couch, cold fury exploding in her chest.

"You've won," she said to him, even though he continued to stare at the ceiling. "But look at her, dammit! Don't pretend you haven't heard us. You haven't missed a word!"

Tai signed resignedly, finally looking at Sora and Mimi in turn. "Of course not. How could I have? Even if I stuck my fingers in my ears, your voices would pound their way into my brain."

He knew this was true without even having to test it, and his state of being was all the worse for it. Not only did the room swim sickeningly before his eyes now, but he could feel the girls' presence in the air. He scratched at his arm as if this would help remove them, but it was no use. They had already permeated his pores, invaded his eyes and ears, and burrowed into his brain, and the one thing he had asked them for, they couldn't seem to provide.

"Why can't you leave me in peace?" he asked them, a hint of desperation in his voice. "There's someone talking about me in my newspaper office, and I want to listen."

"It's her fault, she started it!" Mimi cried, shooting Tai a pleading look. "I didn't ask her for anything, but s-she offered me her mirror."

"Of course I did," said Sora, as Mimi flounced back to her own couch. "But all the time you were making up to him, trying to get HIS attention!"

"Well, why shouldn't I?" Mimi asked testily.

Tai shook his head. "Both of you are nuts. Don't you see where this is leading us? Let's all sit down again, and be quiet. Remember? Each of us needs to try to forget the others are here," he said, albeit halfheartedly.

"Forget about the others?" Sora asked. "That's what's crazy! I _feel _you sitting there. You can refuse to speak, tape your mouth shut, even cut out your tongue, but your silence would still deafen me, because you can't prevent you from being there! I hear your thoughts ticking away like a clock, and you can't tell me that you don't hear mine. It's all very well sulking on your sofa, but you're everywhere, and every sound comes to me soiled because you've intercepted it on the way. Well, I won't stand for it. I prefer to choose my hell, so I'll look at you in the eyes and fight it out face to face!"

"So that's it, then." Tai sighed again. Obviously his plan had failed. "I'd warned you, anyhow, but it's just as well. Gomez had been pontificating as usual. All of the pressmen were listening, but it was so hard to hear. Time moves so quickly down there. And now it's over, he's stopped talking, and whatever he thought of me has gone back into his head. Yeah, it's just as well. I want to know who I'm dealing with here."

"What do you mean? You know everything already. There's nothing more to learn," Sora insisted.

"That's not true," Tai was adamant. "We don't really know _why_ they've damned the other two- and unless we confess everything, none of us know anything that counts."

He had it all figured out now. In trying to be honest with himself, he knew that he didn't mind in the least that they were talking again. Of course keeping silent had seemed like the best course of action when he had suggested it, but doing so really hadn't helped him very much with his conflicting feelings about Sora. He felt helpless in her presence, emasculated, and yet... they _were _still a team, weren't they? Like it or not, they were in this together, and he reasoned that they could either sit around and drive each other crazy, or try to work it out. At the same time, he knew he was hoping that there was still a glimmer of the old Sora, buried somewhere in this hard-hearted woman, and if he said and did the right things then maybe, just maybe, she would look at him with the same warmth and kindness that he remembered.

"If we bring all of our skeletons out of the closet," he said to the room at large, "maybe we can be saved after all."

Both of the girls looked unenthusiastically at him. Mimi refused to meet his eyes, and her face was tinged with red. "I told you, I don't have anything to tell. They... they didn't tell me why I'm here," she said quietly.

"They wouldn't tell me why, either," Tai said at once. "But I have a pretty good idea."

He was steeling himself for what he knew he had to say. He had to go through with it. For them. For himself. "I'll go first then, I guess."

He took a deep breath.

"I'm here," he said, "because I treated my sister abominably. That's all. For five years."

The girls looked around at him at last. "What did you do to Kari?" Sora asked sharply.

But Tai was only half-paying attention. "There she is. Gomez is the one who interests me, and she's the one I see. Typical. They've given her back my things. She's sitting by the window with my coat on her knees. The coat with twelve bullet holes. It's such a museum-piece, scarred with history. I can't believe I used to wear it. Can't you cry at last? No?"

He was silent for a while, watching her finger the coat. The blood on it (_his _blood, he had to remind himself) was dried, brown, and crusty.

At last, he felt he could delay no longer. "I'd come home blind drunk night after night, reeking of wine and women. She would always sit up for me. She never said anything, never cried, even when I lost control. Her eyes were the only thing that let me know how she really felt. Big, tragic eyes. She was a born martyr, you know-don't you remember the kind of stuff she would do? A victim by vocation."

"But why did you do it?" Neither Sora's face nor voice displayed any emotion.

"Why?" _Why indeed_. Tai had to think hard to remember the brother he had been when he was younger. The faintest whiff of scrambled eggs and the sterile smell a hospital forced their way into his brain, the constant companions to his memories of Kari.

"She... she was always so delicate," he said, his voice full of emotion, the uneasiness crawling and squirming through his insides again. How he wished he didn't feel this way every time he thought about her! "I mean, not really- she has a strong will, but she was always sick at just the wrong times, remember? And so quiet. Did you know she barely spoke a word until she was five years old? That stupid whistle... she's always suffered in silence, too. She'll pretend nothing's wrong, even if she's hurt or sad, putting everyone else's feelings before her own. She doesn't have to be that way, she's just chosen to be, time and time again, her whole life long."

The girls were still watching him, seemingly transfixed. He took a shaky breath before continuing.

"She also admired me too much. It drove me crazy, sometimes. It was fine when we were kids, but it started bothering me more and more as we got older. I guess I started on her because I wanted to get some reaction from her, something besides those eyes, but one never came. And then I would do it because... well, because it was so easy. She wouldn't let Gatomon stop me, and Agumon never even said anything about it. He never brought up anything I didn't want to talk about. So there you go. That's how it is."

Time seemed to have stopped for several minutes. It was Sora who finally broke the silence.

"You're horrible." Her whisper settled like dust on the carpet.

"Yes," he said dully. "I know. Why else would I be here? And now you know. Now it's your turn."

Sora looked at him, stone-faced.

"Please," he added.

She smiled grimly. "You know, some people called me a 'damned bitch.' Damned before I was thirty. So it's not really a surprise that I'm here."

She lapsed into silence again, and Tai crossed his arms. "What's the matter, Sora? A few minutes ago you wanted to fight it out. Surely you have more to say than that?"

"I don't have to justify myself to you, Tai Kamiya," she snapped. "I've already made peace with what I am. I'm my own judge and jury. Executioner, too, when you get right down to it. So there's not much of a point."

"Humor me," Tai insisted. "I want to know about what you did after high school. For instance, when you figured out you, ah..."

"When I discovered I liked girls, you mean," Sora finished for him. "That was... sometime in college. Matt and I had had a falling out. In the grand scheme of things, we weren't together for very long. For a while afterward I floated from one boyfriend to another, but it was always unsatisfying. That's when I realized I was disinterested in the gender entirely. So that was the end of that, really."

"And then?"

Sora shot him a withering look. "And then life moved on. There was the affair with Yolei. We became reacquainted a few years ago, and hit it off right away, even through she was already with someone. It's a dead man's tale, with three corpses. He to start, then she and I to follow. A clean sweep. There's nothing left except the apartment." Her gaze lingered on the door to their own room. "I see it, now and then. It's dark and empty. The doors are locked. Oh, wait. Unlocked now. And there's a sign: 'For Rent.' That's... ridiculous."

"So," Tai pressed. "Three deaths. One man and two women."

Sora shrugged. "Our digimon as well, I suppose."

"Did he kill himself?"

Sora smiled again humorlessly, as if she were reliving it all. "Him? No. He didn't have the guts, even though we gave him every reason to. We were horrible. Actually, he was hit by a subway. A silly sort of end. I was living with them at the time. You remember my cousin Dwayne? That was him."

Tai had a faint recollection of an angry, square-jawed blonde ejecting them from his car and knocking Izzy off of a bridge. Then that Gesomon had appeared in the bay, and he hadn't seen nor spared a thought for the man since.

"Go on," he said.

She sighed, slowly pacing the length of the room before idly touching the arm of her couch and staring at the ceiling. "You know, I don't regret a thing, but at the same time, I'm not too keen on telling you the story."

"Well, that's too bad," Tai said dismissively. "So, you got sick of him?"

Sora looked mutinous, but she continued. "Quite gradually. All sorts of little things got on my nerves. The gurgling noise he made when he drank, for example. He was so pathetic. And vulnerable. Why are you looking at me like that?"

She had just noticed that the corners of Tai's mouth were upturned in a crooked smile. "Because I," he said confidently, "am not vulnerable, anyhow."

"Don't be too sure," she said. "Anyway. I crept inside her skin. By the time she left him, she saw the world through my eyes. We shared an apartment on the far end of town."

"And then?"

"Then the subway did its job. And I used to remind her every day that we killed him, the two of us together. I'm rather cruel, really."

"So am I," said Tai.

Sora's mouth twitched as if she were going to smile or retort, but she did neither. "What I mean," she said calmly, "is that I can't go on without making people suffer. I'm like a live coal. I feed on people's hearts, and when I'm alone I flicker out. I flamed away at Yolei's heart for six months, until only a cinder was left. One night she got up while I was asleep, turned on the gas, and crept back into bed. So that's it. Now you know."

Silence fell upon the room again, and it was again broken by Tai. "Well. It's not a pretty story."

Sora shrugged. "Obviously. But what does it matter?"

"Yes... what does it matter," Tai mused, thinking hard. "Your turn, Mimi. What have you done?"

For quite some time now, Tai and Sora had been ignoring the room's third occupant, but now they both turned to face her. She was sitting rigid on her couch, staring fixedly at the floor. Tai noticed it wasn't the sort of stare he associated with looking back down to Earth; instead, it looked like she had been concentrating on their conversation while simultaneously trying to blend into the furniture. She winced when her name was said aloud.

"I'm telling you, I have no idea," she said again. "I rack my brain, but it's no use. None at all, so you may as well stop asking."

"Right," said Tai, glancing at Sora. He recognized the look on her face, the one that said she was ready to worry away at the cracks in another wall, and he felt the undeniable urge to join her. "We'll give you a hand, if you can't remember. Let's start with the guy with no face- who was he?"

"I... I don't know who you mean," said Mimi, feigning innocence.

"You _do _know," Sora said. "The man you were so afraid of seeing when you walked in."

Mimi seemed to realize that they weren't buying it. "Oh yes, him. He was... nobody. A friend of mine."

Tai threw her a devilish smile from his couch and leaned closer to her. "Then why were you so afraid of him?"

She turned to him again. "That's my business, Tai." Her voice was lofty, but her eyes were skittish. They seemed to be looking everywhere except Tai and Sora's faces.

"Did he shoot himself on your account?" Sora pressed, crossing the room and leaning against the arm of Mimi's couch.

"Of course not," Mimi gave a high, false laugh. "How absurd you are!"

"Then why were you so scared?" Tai asked, leaving his seat and joining Sora around Mimi's. "He blew his brains out, didn't he? That's how he lost his face."

"Don't!" Mimi cried. It was as if she were the rope in some bizarre game of tug-of-war, and she was showing the strain of both of them pulling on her.

"It was because of you, wasn't it? All your fault," Tai suggested wickedly.

"Of course it was," Sora echoed. "He shot himself because of you!"

Mimi jumped up, unable to take it anymore. "Leave me alone!" she cried. "It's not fair, bullying me like this. I want to go! I want to go!" She ran to the door and tried, without success, to open it.

Tai chuckled. He felt a great satisfaction knowing that he was the torturer instead of the tortured. For the first time since coming here, he felt in control. He might as well revel in it.

"What's the matter, Mimi?" he asked as she gave up at the door and staggered into the center of the room, looking like a wilted plant.

She glared at him and shook her head. "You're hateful, the pair of you."

"So true," Sora said dismissively. "Now, get on with it, won't you? He killed himself on your account. You were his mistress, eh?"

"Of course she was," Tai piped in. "And he wanted to have her all to himself. Didn't he?"

"I'm sure he danced the tango like a professional, that he was a perfect gentleman," Sora sneered, "but he was dirt poor- isn't that right?"

Mimi continued to shake her head feebly, looking at the floor, clutching at her dress and twisting the fabric in her fists. Her breaths were coming fast and ragged, as if she were sobbing.

"Was he poor or not?" demanded Tai. "Give a straight answer."

"Yes," she whispered, still refusing to look at them. "Yes, he was poor."

"And you," Tai continued, sparing no sympathy for her, "You had a reputation to keep up. One day he came to you, begging you to run away with him, and you laughed in his face."

Sora looked triumphant. "That's it. You laughed. And then he killed himself."

Mimi looked at Sora at last. "Did you used to look at Yolei that way?" she asked, her face the picture of agony.

"Yes."

Mimi was silent for a time. She seemed to be deciding something. "You've got it all wrong, you two," she cried, her eyes burning with a new fire. "He... he wanted me to have a baby. So there!"

"And you didn't want one?" Tai asked.

Mimi stiffened again. "I certainly didn't! But the baby came, worse luck. I went to Switzerland for five months. No one knew anything. It was a girl. He was with me when it was born. It pleased him to no end, having a daughter. But it didn't please me!" she said defiantly.

"And...?"

"There was a balcony overlooking the lake," she continued, her voice becoming faster and shriller. "I brought a big stone. He knew what I was up to and kept shouting for me to stop. How I hated him then! He saw it all. He was leaning over the balcony and saw the rings spread on the water. He sent Gomamon in, but it was too late."

A feeling of cold dread started spreading through Tai's stomach. "Gomamon?" he repeated in a hollow voice. "And a man you became reacquainted with? Mimi, did you- the father of your baby- it was Joe?"

The question seemed to hang in the air while they waited for her to answer. Finally, Mimi gave a nod, almost imperceptible through her shaking and fidgeting. "He did become a doctor, you know," she said to the floor. "A good one, even though he never could quite make enough to pay off his student loans."

"What happened then?" Sora asked. Her expression was illegible once again.

"That's all. I went back to Paris and- and he did as he wished."

"He killed himself," Sora said. All the bite had gone out of her words.

"It was absurd of him, really. My husband never suspected anything. But oh, how I loathe you!" Mimi wrung her hands and her body shook with dry sobs, but Tai noticed that no tears fell from her eyes. Apparently this place didn't let you cry, either.

"Poor Mimi. The hearing's over. It's all right." Sora said, touching Mimi's arm. Even though she was gentle, Mimi flinched and pulled away as if she had been struck.

"Yeah," Tai said listlessly, even though his mind was whirring.

_Two DigiDestined done in by two of their own_, he couldn't help thinking. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised about what Sora had done based on her behavior thus far. But was he really ready to believe that Mimi had killed her own newborn daughter, and been responsible for Joe Kido's suicide? And even if it _were_ true, didn't she seem sorry enough? It had been her, after all, who had suggested that she was here by mistake. Maybe she didn't really deserve to be here. Not like Sora... not like himself.

"Please, Mimi. Don't be angry with me." He wasn't sure what made him say that. He seemed to be moved by an emotion not unlike pity for the Keeper of Sincerity's current state.

"Oh Tai, I'm not," Mimi sniffled, seeming to calm down and giving him a tiny smile. "I can't... I can't be angry with you."

"What about me?" Sora asked, somewhat sharply. "Are you angry with me?"

Mimi looked at her steadily for a few moments, a look of hatred spreading over her face. The entire room seemed to be holding its breath. Her answer came evenly, deliberately, with the intention to hurt.

"Yes."


	4. Stage Four: Depression

Digimon Existential Theater Presents: No Exit  
>aka, "Hell is Other DigiDestined"<p>

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><p><em>Author's Note: Readers who have stuck it out this far will probably either really like this chapter or really hate it, and I'm not sure which... but hey, we're entering the home stretch here!<em>

_As I was writing this thing, I debated with myself whether to split it into chapters or just post it as one big monster fic (to mimic the one-act nature of the play). Obviously I decided on chapters, but maybe I kind of regret that now? The thing got off to a pretty slow start, and looking back, the chapter breaks seem fairly abrupt. But here at last, I finally feel like we're going to have a proper cliffhanger :)_

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><p>The two women held each other's gazes for several more charged seconds. To Tai, it looked like a battle of wills. Sora's eyes were calculating, almost pleading, as she searched for a chink she could exploit, while Mimi was pushing back, adamantly refusing to give, daring Sora to keep trying.<p>

And to Tai's surprise, it was Sora who relented first, although it was not with the look of disappointment or sadness he was expecting. Instead, she fixed an appraising look onto him.

"Well, Tai," she said in a businesslike tone. "There you are. Full disclosure. Do you understand our situation any better for it?"

Tai considered this. "I wonder. Yeah, maybe a little. But now suppose we try to help each other."

Sora turned away from him at this. "I don't need help," she said, crossing the room once more to sit on her couch.

He followed her. "Sora, wait- don't you get it? They've put us in a trap, like a... cobweb. Every movement you make pulls Mimi and me. We can't save ourselves alone, so you can't- hello? Are you even listening?"

Sora looked far away again. She answered him as if some external entity were making her speak. "They've rented it. My apartment! The windows are open, light's pouring in. There's a man sitting on my bed- MY bed! A woman, too. She's going up to him, putting her hands on his shoulders. And now it's going dark... open the windows again, or turn on the light, please! But she's saying... she's saying it's so bright, with the noonday sun... and they're kissing. But that's my room, they can't... I must be going blind. Blind and deaf."

She focused on Tai again after a few more seconds, a deadened look in her eyes. "It's over. I'm done with it, done with Earth. I feel so empty- really gone at last. All I am is here in this room. No more alibis."

She sighed and rubbed her temples. "Sorry, Tai. What were you saying? Something about helping me, I think. Help me do what?"

"Defeat them," Tai said. "Help me. Help us. It just takes a little effort. Don't you remember when we were in the Digital World? You were always looking out for the whole team. You were like our mother. It would just take a spark of that old human feeling to do the same right now."

Sora laughed bitterly, a hand still over her eyes. "Human feeling! If you haven't noticed, I'm not the same person I was when I was eleven. That sort of kindness is beyond me." She looked at Mimi again, who was fidgeting.

"Stop that," he said forcefully. "Don't you get it? Mimi's fated to be your torturer. She's a trap for you!"

"Don't you think I've already guessed that?" Sora said placidly. "Do I look like I care? I know I'm going to burn, and it's going to last forever. There are so many traps. She's a trap for me, sure. But I'm a trap for her, too. And maybe I'll catch her. It'll just take time."

He stared at her, anger building in his chest without the words to back it up. "You were supposed to be the one that had the Crest of Love," he said bluntly. "Is this really what your idea of love is anymore?"

Her expression changed from impartial to angry as quickly as a summer storm, and he started to have second thoughts about asking her for help. "Don't lecture me," she warned, her voice suddenly dangerous, "about the idea of love. I could tell you one or two things about love that certainly wouldn't fit into your philosophy, Tai Kamiya."

"Tell me then," he said, recklessness overriding any residual feelings of caution.

"Tell _me_," she said, looking directly at him. "Do you think love means protecting other people's feelings, sparing them from pain and suffering, when in reality you'd like to do the opposite? Even when they wouldn't do the same for you? Stroking fragile egos, feigning interest in the problems you stopped caring about a long time ago? Ignoring their annoying little habits, pretending they don't bother you, when all you'd like to do is scream? I had always thought so. It was a game I played for years. Love everyone, forever, no matter what. Be forgiving and gracious and helpful, stand by their side through thick and thin, and hope that you find just one person who loves you a _fraction _as much as you love them, because when your capacity for love is supposed to be infinite, that's about as much as you can hope for.

"And then, maybe ten years ago, after yet another broken heart, it hit me... aren't _my _feelings, _my _happiness, important? Can't I be more selective of whom I love, and when, and for how long? Why do I have to give and give when I never get anything back? That's when all those other emotions started to surface, the ugly ones I had always felt but tried to keep hidden from the world for as long I could remember. Anger, jealousy, lust, ambivalence. I was drunk with pleasure, acting on all of those forbidden impulses. I knew I should show some restraint, but I couldn't stop. It felt so good, like a little fire burning inside me. It burned and burned, spread throughout my psyche, until one day there was nothing else left. I looked in the mirror and saw the sum of all of my selfish actions, and it disgusted me, terrified me. That put the fire out for good. Since then, I've been nothing but an empty husk."

Tai was silent for a bit. "Well, you may have given up, but I haven't, anyway. I wouldn't be much of a leader if I didn't feel something for my team. Sure, I don't regret what I did to put myself here either; I'm dried up too. But for you, Sora, I can still feel pity." He reached out to touch her, but she moved away.

"Spare me!" she snarled. "I don't need your pity; save that for yourself. Because don't forget, Tai, that there are traps here for you too. You should watch out for your own interests. Just leave me alone- me and Mimi- and I'll see that I don't do you any harm."

What he wouldn't give for a moment of peace! "Fine," he said, exasperated, and turned away from her toward his own couch.

He didn't get very far. Mimi was standing directly behind him, her hands clasped at her breast.

"Please, Tai," she said beseechingly.

He took a step backward. "What do you want?" he asked suspiciously.

"You can help _me_, anyhow," she said in a low voice. "You said, didn't you, that you'd look after us? Well, I don't want to be left alone right now. Catherine's taken him to a cabaret!"

"Who?"

"Pierre," she answered, still looking at Tai, or past him. "Oh, and now they're dancing together!"

"Who's Pierre?" asked Sora.

Mimi shook her head and gave a short laugh, watching the scene transpire on Earth. "Such a silly boy. He called me his glancing stream, his crystal girl. What a romantic! He was terribly in love with me. She convinced him to go out with her tonight, but she's such a fool to insist on dancing. She's rather let herself go, you see. She's already out of breath and wheezing like a grandpa!"

"Did you love him?" Sora demanded.

"Of course not," she said vaguely. "He's only eighteen, and I'm not a baby-snatcher... but he belonged to me, heart and soul."

Sora smiled. "Don't be silly. Nothing on Earth belongs to you now. Try to make him hear you. Try to touch him. You can't. But Catherine can. She can talk to him as long as she likes, and put her arms around his neck, rub against his-"

Sora's words seemed to be fueling Mimi's reverie. "You're right! She's pressing her great fat chest into him, huffing and blowing into his face. My darling, can't you see how ridiculous she is? Laugh at her, why don't you? Oh, if only I were there! It would only take one look from me to get her to leave him alone. Is there really nothing left of me down there?"

"Nothing," Sora said confidently, "not even a shadow. All you own is here. Would you like that statue on the mantel? The letter-opener? That sofa's yours. I am too- yours forever."

"You? Mine?" Mimi scoffed. "That's rich! Which of you two would call me half of the names he came up with for me? You know too much about me. But Pierre, my dear... as long as you still think of me as your crystal girl, I'm only half-here, and thus half-wicked. The other half of me is down there with you, pure and unblemished. You can save me! Just don't look at her like that, please... don't you remember we used to laugh at her together? I mean, her face is red. All red, like a tomato!"

She had moved away from Tai now, into the center of the room, lost in whatever she was seeing. She was swaying and stepping absentmindedly, small movements in time with an unheard melody. As she turned slowly on the spot, her leg lifted in a half-pirouette, she reminded Tai of a music box his grandmother used to have. It had been made out of porcelain in the shape of a dancing woman, and so delicate (his grandmother had insisted) that it could break if you handled it too roughly, spoke too loudly, or looked too closely.

"What's that tune?" she asked, her voice quavering. "I always loved it. Dance away then, but oh, Tai, I wish you could see them; you'd die laughing. She's treading on his toes- it's a scream! He always said I was so light, and that he loved to dance with me. I can see you, Catherine, I know what you're doing. But you don't care, do you, you don't see me. What's that you said? 'Poor Mimi?' How dare you! You didn't even shed one tear at my funeral! And now- oh no, no. Don't tell him, please! You can do what you want with him, but don't tell him about _that_. Oh, isn't it foul, Tai? She's told him everything about Joe, Switzerland, and the baby... he's looking so serious, but not exactly surprised. The crystal's shattered then. 'Poor Mimi,' he says. Oh, yes, poor Mimi... Dance all you like then, dance away, but do keep time. How I would love to go down there for just one more minute and dance with him again! They've turned the lights down now, like they do for a tango, and they're playing so faintly... louder, please, I can't hear. Softer and softer... darker and darker... It's all over then. The world has left me."

All this time, Tai had been watching her, fascinated. But now the spectacle was over; Mimi was silent and still in the middle of the room. He felt another stab of pity for her, but was uncertain about how to act on it. On the one hand, he could comfort her, but at the same time... he couldn't help thinking that he was the only one that had any connection to Earth now. The ability was finite, fleeting, and he had no way of knowing which time would be the last. He would never forgive himself if he squandered those last chances to observe the world of the living.

He moved to go back to his couch, where he thought he would try to listen in on the happenings of the newspaper office again. However, before he could turn, he saw Mimi run to him, felt her press her body into his arms.

"Please don't," she pleaded. "Don't leave me alone. Hold me, Tai."

Tai looked down at her soft brown head, then over at Sora, who was sitting tensed on her couch as if ready to leap up and rip them away from each other. She had a warning look in her eyes, and he vaguely remembered what she said about letting her and Mimi be.

"If you want someone to hold you, talk to Sora," he said huskily. He tried to push her away, but she held him tightly around his waist.

"Don't turn away!" she cried. "You're a man, aren't you, and surely I'm not a fright as all that. Everyone used to say that I was lovely, and a man killed himself on my account, after all. You have to look at _something_, and what else is there besides some couches and that horrible ornament on the fireplace? I've got to be better than a lot of stupid furniture!"

"Mimi, I'm telling you, you should be talking to Sora," he insisted again, his voice less firm this time. He had just caught a whiff of Mimi's shampoo. It didn't so much smell _good_, but it was flowery and fruity, unabashedly feminine, and that was a comfort to him somehow. She was the same old Mimi, after all... and she _was _very pretty. He had half of a mind to tell her so if only to cheer her up, but the other half was preoccupied with what Sora might do if he did.

"Sora?" Mimi said dismissively. "She doesn't count. She's a woman."

"Oh, I don't count, is that it?" Sora said, getting up from her couch to approach the pair of them. "I would do whatever you wanted of me. Mimi, you're... you're my glancing stream! My crystal!"

"_Your_ crystal?" Mimi sneered, turning her head to face Sora in her anger. "Do you think you can fool me? The crystal's shattered, but it doesn't matter. I'm something else now. I don't know what, exactly, but whatever I am, it's not for _you_."

"Please, Mimi!" Sora entreated, gazing longingly into the other woman's face, shortening the distance between them so they were an arm's reach apart. "Come to me! You can be whatever you want: a glancing stream, a muddy brook. Look into my eyes again and deep down you'll see yourself exactly as you want to be!"

"Leave me alone!" cried Mimi. "Isn't there anything I can do to be rid of you? Oh, I know!"

And she wound her hand back and slapped Sora across the face.

"There!" she addressed the older woman savagely. "Maybe _that _will teach you to keep your distance!"

Sora didn't say anything for a long time, an illegible expression frozen on her face. "You'll pay for this, Tai," she said evenly, but he was too stunned to care.

"So you... you need me, is that it?" he asked Mimi. He knew he should feel angry with her, that he should demand some sort of apology on behalf of Sora, but he couldn't bring himself to do either. It's not like it had really been Mimi's fault. After all, if Sora hadn't been baiting her, it wouldn't even have happened.

Mimi nodded, continuing to stare at him confidently, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He could feel the heat creeping up his neck and face, whether it was the result of her proximity to him or his own blush, he wasn't sure. He couldn't think of a time when anyone had said that to him before.

"I'm, uh... I'm not your type at all," he insisted. _What am I doing?_ he thought. "I don't dance the tango, for one thing."

"I'll take you as you are," she smiled playfully. "Maybe I can change you, you never know."

"I doubt it." The newspaper office flashed suddenly across his mind. Someone was talking about him again! He quickly disengaged himself from her arms. "I have other things to think about, and they wouldn't interest you."

"That's fine. I'll just sit on your sofa and wait for you. I won't bother you at all." She glided over to his couch, flipped her hair over her shoulder, and looked at him expectantly.

"That's right," Sora said sardonically. "Fawn on him. Grovel and cringe!"

Somehow, Tai had nearly forgotten that Sora was there. He turned to her again, in one more silent appeal to the old Sora, but no trace of her could be found on the face that glared back at him. That cinched it- the Sora he had known was dead. Worse than dead, really, because his mind's eye seemed to be unable to resurrect even a memory of her. He had pictured her often enough while he was alive, and even though that Sora had been imagined, maybe idealized, he never would have guessed there would be such a disconnect between his desperate dream and the real thing. But now he knew. The girl he had wanted to love had died when he had, and ceased to exist in his mind as soon as he met her replacement: this formidable woman with a cinder for a heart and hatred in her eyes.

White-hot anger blazed in his chest and the room, his newspaper office, everything else was driven from his mind, except this newfound hatred and an overwhelming sense of loss. _Do it!_ the vindictive, Sora-like voice said in his head. The new model had even taken over his thoughts, and he couldn't help but listen. He would. He would show her. He would make her pay for her crimes against him the only way he knew how.

He sunk down onto his couch and kissed Mimi full on the lips.

Mimi responded at once, and with enthusiasm. He was surprised by the warmth coming off of her; he hadn't thought it was possible for him to feel any hotter. Less surprising was the softness of her lips, the shape of her tongue, the small movement of her hips as he reached around to touch the small of her back...

He heard a squawk over to his left. "Tai, Mimi! You've... you've gone crazy! You're not alone. I'm here, too!"

Tai couldn't resist, and, he could tell, neither could Mimi. They pulled apart to twist the knife together.

"What does it matter?" he asked Sora coldly.

"You wouldn't," Sora said, her eyes wide. "You couldn't. Not while I'm here."

Mimi laughed, a shrill, cruel sound. "Why not? I often undressed with my maid looking on."

"But you... you promised." She was speaking directly to Tai, looking at him with sadness in her eyes for the first time since she arrived. "Please, Tai. I'm only asking you to keep your word."

"My word...?" He vaguely recalled their conversation from a few minutes- hours?- ago. He had agreed to leave her and Mimi alone, and in return... in return she had said she wouldn't hurt him. Thinking about his feelings for her, how she had treated him since arriving, he realized that just by being here, she had hurt him in more ways than one, more ways than she could ever know.

"Why should I," he said evenly. "When you were the first one to break our agreement?"

He turned his back on her, focusing on Mimi once more. She smiled at him, sweetly, triumphantly, and they kissed again. It was an act that was both calculated and experimental, unnecessary and urgent. With his free hand, Tai reached up and began to caress Mimi's breast through the fabric of her dress, and she sighed appreciatively into his mouth.

"Fine, have it your way," Sora said from somewhere. It seemed that she had found her voice again. "I'm obviously outnumbered. But don't forget I'm here, watching you. I won't take my eyes off you, Tai, and when you're making love to her, you'll feel them drilling into you. Yes, do what you want, but remember that we're in hell, and my turn will come."

Tai couldn't help but hear her. _No matter_, he thought. Sora didn't count, not as long as he had Mimi. She was so much better than any of those Brazilian women, more familiar somehow. Not to mention she had to be the first human being he had touched in- well, certainly since he had died. It seemed like an eternity ago; he was probably out of practice. He could feel his calloused hands catch on the fabric of her dress as they roved around her body, see them leaving dark sweat stains in their wake. _How romantic_.

He pulled away for the space of a second to catch his breath and met Mimi's eye. He couldn't help it, they were fixed pupil-to-pupil, and, as always, unable to blink. It made him uncomfortable, to have eye contact while they were so close to each other. He wished she would look somewhere else.

He sat up, unable to continue, trying not to look at anything. A little nagging echo of his former life was worming its way through his thoughts, making it impossible to concentrate on what he had been doing.

Mimi propped herself up on her elbows, looking annoyed. "Now really. Didn't I tell you not to worry about her?"

He shook his head. She had misunderstood his actions. "It's Gomez, in the press-room. They've shut the windows and left their coats on. It must be winter. It's been about six months then, since I-" he gave her an ironic smile. "I warned you I'd be absent-minded, didn't I? He's talking about me again."

"Is this going to last long?" She sounded irritated now. "You might at least tell me what he's saying."

He listened to Gomez. Mustachioed, swaggering, smug Gomez. "Nothing," he said, even as anger was causing his fists to clench. "Nothing worth repeating. He's a swine, that's all. A god-damned dirty swine."

He took a deep, shuddering breath, attempting to regain his composure. "It doesn't matter. Let's come back to ourselves. Please, Mimi. Will you... will you say that you trust me?"

He reached for her and she sidled against him again, giggling slightly. "What a quaint thing to ask! Trust is pretty meaningless in this place. There's nowhere for you to hide, you know. You're always under my supervision, and I don't have much to fear from Sora as far as you're concerned."

She had misunderstood him again. "I was talking about another kind of trust," he murmured, leaning forward, forcing himself to look at her even as Gomez's voice buzzed in his ear like a fly. _Talk away, you swine, talk away. I'm not there to defend myself, so you can say what you like._ "Mimi, please give me your trust."

If she noticed the serious look on his face, she was ignoring it. "How aggravating you are! I'm giving you my mouth, my arms, my entire body! Everything could be so simple- but my trust! You must have something pretty ghastly on your conscience to make such a fuss about a triviality like that!"

"They shot me."

"I know that, but it's because you refused to fight. What you did seems reasonable to me."

He felt his eyes leave her face, shifting to focus on nothing in particular. "He really makes a good case against me. But it's no help. He never says what I should have done instead. Should I have gone to the general, told him I refused to fight? Sent Greymon in my place? Gone to the Digital World? They'd have locked me up if I had stayed, and they were guarding all of the Digiports, so that was out, too. But I had to take a stand, show my true colors, you know? They couldn't silence me. So I took the train. They caught me at the frontier."

"Where were you trying to go?" Mimi asked conversationally.

"Mexico. I was going to launch another pacifist newspaper up there." He looked at her again. Her lips were pursed. "Well? Say something!"

"What do you want me to say?" she asked, confusion coloring her voice. "It all makes sense to me. You didn't want to fight, so you didn't. What could I answer beyond that to make you forget this silly business?"

Tai heard Sora's low chuckle as if from a million miles away. "Can't you guess?" she asked Mimi. "He wants you to tell him he bolted like a lion, for bolt he did, and that's what's bugging him."

"Bolted. Went away," he shrugged. "Let's not argue over words."

"But you had to go, didn't you?" Mimi pressed. "If you had stayed, they would have sent you to jail."

He nodded, wondering if he liked hearing someone else justify his actions out loud, wondering if it made them sound more reasonable. "That's right. So what do you think, Mimi? Am I a coward?"

She shook her head, more in disbelief than in answer to his question. "How am I supposed to know? I can't put myself in your shoes. You have to decide things like that for yourself."

"I... I can't decide."

She looked at him earnestly. "You had reasons for acting like you did, didn't you?"

"I did..."

"So there you are!"

Tai got up from the couch, frustrated at her unhelpfulness. "But were they the _right _reasons?"

He thought he saw Mimi roll her eyes out of the corner of his. "You have to understand," he said, wishing he could return to a frame of mind where it had all made sense to him. "I'd thought it all out. I was making a stand. But I can't tell if that was my real motive or not!"

"That's the question, isn't it?" Sora asked from her couch, an echo to his own thoughts. "You argued it out with yourself. Weighed the pros and cons. Rationalized what you did. But you know about the things that hide in the depths of your psyche. Fear and hatred and all of those dirty little instincts you try to keep buried, because you know that _they_ can be motives, too."

His mind traveled back to those few hours after he had made his decision, the implementation of his grand escape. How he and Agumon had sneaked onto that freight train in the dead of night, and it started carrying them away into the future. How his blood had run cold when he realized that they were slowing down mere miles from the border, and that the guards were committed to a slow and thorough search of the cargo. How quickly they had immobilized Agumon with a well-placed tranquilizer dart and disarmed him just as easily. How cold and miserable that jail cell was, cut off from light and food and his digimon partner...

"After they got me, I didn't have much to do except sit in my cell and think," Tai said to the wall. "A man must face himself before he can face his enemies, I've always said. So I tried to figure myself out. Why had I taken the train? Doesn't courage mean doing the right thing, even if you understand the consequences, even if you're afraid? I thought it had been the right thing to do. And I was terrified of how it would all turn out. That should have absolved me. But I still doubted... then finally I thought, my death will settle it. If I can face death like a man, I'll prove I'm no coward."

"And how did you face it?" Sora asked quietly.

He thought of the blindfold pressed against his eyeballs, the sounds and smells of the barracks overwhelming him as he stood in front of the firing squad, the tense, restless energy that had agitated every nerve in his body and made it impossible for him to stop shaking, causing even his heartbeat to seem erratic as it hammered in his chest. He remembered the thoughts that had screamed through his head: _it's not fair, this can't be happening to me, it just can't end like this!_ How his brain had refused to understand why his body continued to stay where it had been placed while he still had two working legs, blood pumping through his veins, a will to keep living. The desperate slap of his feet against the hard ground, cut short with a blast like thunder, and then only vague sensations: pain, the dull realization that he was lying in something warm and wet, his vision dimming into an unnatural darkness, coldness spreading from his chest into his arms and legs, and finally silence.

"Miserably," he conceded at last. "A physical lapse. I suppose it could have happened to anyone. But now, everything's been left in suspense." He beckoned to Mimi, who approached him looking relieved. "C'mere, Mimi. I want to feel someone's touch while they're talking about me. You have such soft hands."

"Soft hands! Listen to him!" Sora snorted. "What about you, Mimi? Do you like cowards?"

Mimi shrugged, caressing Tai's chest through his shirt with one hand and sliding the other around his waist. "What does it matter, so long as he kisses well?"

Tai was only half-conscious of what the women were saying. "They look bored, tired. They're thinking, "Kamiya's a coward." It's what they've decided, those dear friends of mine. In six months they'll be saying, "cowardly as that skunk Kamiya." You two are lucky, no one on Earth giving you another thought. Me, I'm long in dying."

"What about Kari?" Sora asked.

Tai gave a blunt laugh. "Didn't I tell you? She's dead."

"Dead?" Sora repeated, looking somewhat taken aback.

"She died just now," Tai said dully. "About two months ago."

"What of?"

"Grief- what else?" He disengaged himself from Mimi's embrace and sat down again, cradling his head in his hands as if it had become too heavy for his neck to support by itself. "It's all for the best. The war is over, my sister's dead, and I've carved out my place in history."

He felt Mimi's weight next to him on the couch, the heat radiating from her body almost unbearable against his skin. "My poor darling," she cooed, her white-hot hand caressing his cheek, lifting his chin, forcing eye contact onto him once more. "Why trouble over what those men are thinking? They'll die off, one by one. Forget them. There's only me, now."

He turned away from her, wondering how it was possible for her to be so much warmer than the room that was already too hot. "But they won't forget _me_." His voice was bitter. "They won't. And when they die, others will come after them to carry on the legend. The legend of Cowardly Kamiya, who took the train and died like a dog."

She gave him a searing peck on the forehead. "Really. You think too much. That's your trouble."

"But what else _can_ I do?" She made as if to speak, but he didn't give her the chance to. "I was a man of action once. Surely you remember? If I could go down there, just for one more day, I'd show them... but I can't. I'm locked out, they're passing judgment on my life without troubling about _me_, and they're right because I'm dead. Dead and done with." His fist was clenched again, and shaking on his knee.

"Tai." It was Mimi again. He couldn't believe she was so persistent.

"Listen," he told her, finally meeting her eyes of his own accord. "I need you to do something for me."

She looked uncertain again, shifting her weight and shying away from him slightly. He grabbed her wrist and held firm. "It's nothing big, don't worry," he reassured her. "Just- look, this is the way I see it. Maybe there are a thousand people down there, saying that Tai Kamiya is a coward. But numbers don't matter, do they? If just one person could say definitively that I didn't run away, I'm not the type of guy to run away, that I'm brave and decent and all that- well, then I'd be redeemed. So, I'm asking you- can you believe that about me? I'll love you forever if you can. Mimi, will you?"

She looked at him, sweet, sincere, beautiful Mimi, and her eyes danced with mirth. "Oh, Tai," she cried. "I like men who are real men, don't you see? With tough skin, and strong hands. You don't have a coward's chin, or a coward's mouth, or a coward's voice, or a coward's hair. And it's for all of those things: your mouth, your hair, your voice, that I love you!"

"Do you really mean it?" he asked, holding his breath.

"Of course I do." She smiled at him, and it was so comforting, so pure, so genuine and radiant that he couldn't help but feel the weight of his own damnation lift off of his shoulders. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close, laughing.

"Then there's nothing to worry about! I spit on them all from my couch, those newspaper pigs, and you and I, Mimi, we'll climb out of hell!" They both broke out laughing, and all was well for the first time since Tai had come here. It felt so good, and he couldn't stop. Her smile had infected every part of his body, every corner of the room. Even Sora had joined in, her low chuckle contrasting with their increasingly high-pitched and hysterical giggles.

The only difference was that Sora's laugh continued long after Tai and Mimi had stopped, and only then did Tai realize she hadn't been laughing with him.

She had been laughing _at_ him.

"Really, Tai, how can you keep deluding yourself like this?" Her dark voice smothered his elation further. "She doesn't mean a word she says. Haven't you been listening? Coward, hero- as if she gave a damn either way!"

Mimi's face was turning stony, the smile leaving her face and eyes. "How dare you, Sora? Don't listen to her," she said to Tai, branding his cheek with another burning kiss. "If you want me to believe in you, you have to start by trusting me."

"Oh, yes, trust her! Trust away!" Sora insisted with mock-enthusiasm. "She wants a man, that much you know- and that's all she wants. She would swear that you're God Almighty if she thought it would get her past second base."

"Shut up! Won't you shut up!" Mimi cried, and Tai felt the happiness that had filled him just a few short minutes ago turn to ash in his chest and mouth. His arm slackened around Mimi's waist.

"Is that true?" he asked, not sure what he was expecting to gain from her. If what Sora was saying was correct, then he shouldn't believe anything Mimi told him anyway, yet he felt the inexorable need to hear what she had to say for herself.

Mimi shook her head in disbelief. "What do you want me to say?" she wailed. "Do you have any idea how maddening it is to have to answer questions one can't make any sense of? I'd love you just the same, even if you were a coward. I'm no expert on _love_-" she shot Sora a significant look- "but I think that's what a woman should do for the man she's given herself to. And isn't that enough?"

She looked at him with what she had clearly intended to be a pleading look, but all he could see were wide, unblinking eyes looking at him stupidly, blankly, like a fish's.

He shuddered involuntarily. This... person, this _thing_ was not the Mimi he thought he knew, caring and genuine and worthy of possessing the Crest of Sincerity. This Mimi was a shell, beautiful but superficial, that he himself had painted to resemble the girl he had known all those years ago. She had had an affair, killed her newborn baby, admitted to being directly responsible for the death of one of their friends, and didn't see anything wrong with telling him what he wanted to hear as long as he kept paying attention to her.

He had lost Sora. And now Mimi was gone, too.

"You disgust me," he said savagely. "Both of you." He pushed Mimi away, staggering a little as he got to his feet.

"What are you doing?" He heard Mimi's cry, but he did not dare turn around and look at her again, for fear of becoming sick.

"I'm going," he said firmly, marching to the door on the other side of the room and regarding it like an old foe.

"You won't get far," Sora said in a singsong voice. "It's locked, remember?"

"I don't care. I'll _make_ them open it!" He jabbed the bell button as hard as he could while pounding the door with his other fist, praying to any gods that were listening that something he did would work.

"Stop! Please!" Mimi wailed from his couch.

"Fear not, my darling," he heard Sora croon. "The bell doesn't work either."

"It _will_ open," he insisted. "I can't stand it anymore, I'm through! I can't stand being here with the two of you anymore!" He heard quick, light footsteps, felt himself suffocated by the heat of Mimi's embrace around his middle.

"Go away!" He shouted, fighting to remove her arms while she tried to maintain contact with him. "You're even worse than Sora. Soft and slimy- ugh!" But the more he struggled, the more it seemed to Tai that she was all arms: grabbing, pulling, and twisting, winding and wrapping themselves around every part of his body they could reach, like an octopus.

"Don't, Tai," she begged, the desperation evident in her voice. "Please don't leave me! I won't say anything else to upset you- not another word, I promise! I won't be any trouble, just don't leave- _please_ don't leave me alone with _her_!"

Tai stopped struggling to look at Sora and Mimi in turn. A look of haughty amusement played about Sora's face, as if she was curious to see where Tai's struggles with Mimi and the door would take him. Mimi was clearly terrified about the prospect of him leaving, but he couldn't say that bothered him in the least. "Look after yourself," he said to her, once again trying to shake off her grip. "I don't care. I never asked you to come here in the first place."

"How mean you are!" She loosened her hold on him somewhat in her indignation. "It's quite true, you know, that you're a coward." She seemed to think that throwing that particular barb would halt his attempt to escape, but he was past caring about what she thought of him. All of his instincts were telling him to get out of this room, get as far away from these two women as quickly as possible. He couldn't stand being around them anymore. He could barely stand being around himself.

He hadn't noticed Sora getting up and walking over to where he and Mimi were standing, but she was there now, painfully close to him. "I hope you're satisfied now," she was saying into Mimi's ear. "You spent all that time playing up to him, and we had a few little lovers' spats on his account. But now he's leaving, and good riddance. We'll have the place to ourselves at last!"

Mimi stared straight ahead, trying not to look at Sora. "You won't get anything from me. If that door opens, I'm going too."

"Where could you possibly go from here?" Sora asked in a confident voice. "I wouldn't exactly call the hallway a prime vacation spot."

"I don't care where!" Mimi cried exasperatedly. "As far away from you as I can!" She clung even more tightly to Tai, and he pounded still harder on the door.

"Open the door!" he shouted with renewed vigor. "Put me somewhere else, _anywhere_ else! Give me any form of torture you can think of- hot pokers, molten lead, racks or shocks or garrotes- I'd take any of them, _all_ of them, everything that burns or flays or tears- as long as it's not this mental agony, this gnawing and fumbling and caressing pain that aches and throbs and never hurts quite enough! Open- for God's sake, OPEN!"

And to his complete surprise, to the surprise of everyone in the room, the door slid open into the ceiling with a soft _whoosh_, as if it were expelling a contented sigh.


	5. Stage Five: Acceptance

Digimon Existential Theater Presents: No Exit  
>aka, "Hell is Other DigiDestined"<p>

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><p><em>The tale is complete, all the good parts weighed in with the bad. If you're still reading this, thanks for sticking it out so long. I hope you enjoyed it, although constructive criticism is always appreciated if you feel like providing any.<br>_

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><p>The silence that followed would have spanned several heartbeats, if any of the room's occupants still had blood pumping through their veins.<p>

Just beyond the doorway were the black, shiny surfaces Tai recognized from his initial trip down the hallway. Their reflected selves stared back at them from the opposite wall, completely still but for the flickering torchlight. The expressions frozen on their faces reminded Tai absurdly of those worn by children caught in some deliberate act of disobedience: staying up past curfew, sneaking a cookie before dinner, playing soccer in the house. He immediately wished that he hadn't been the one to catch them at it.

It was Sora who broke the silence, but tentatively, as if testing whether or not it could really be done. "Well, Tai? There you have it. You're free to go."

Her words seemed to take a long time to reach his brain. Free to go. That was... what he wanted, wasn't it? He stuck his head out of the room, looking up and down the long, empty hallway, silent as a tomb, hot as a furnace. Nothing was stopping him from stepping over the threshold, running past the countless doors and torches, finding a way out. But if that was the case, why weren't his feet moving...?

"I wonder why the door opened." He forced himself to consider the doorframe in order to give his feet more time to decide what they were going to do, not really expecting anyone to answer him.

"Stop stalling," Sora said, annoyance creeping back into her voice. "You can go, so go."

"I... I won't." Another thought was gnawing at his mind, dissolving the fight-or-flight impulse he had felt so strongly before.

"And you, Mimi?" Sora asked, growing in bravado. Mimi shrank away from her, shaking her head emphatically. "Which of the three of us will be first to leave? The barrier's down, why are we waiting?" She laughed, and the noise echoed throughout the desolate hallway, making her sound like dozens of people. "I can barely believe it. We're inseparables!"

"No!" Mimi cried, releasing Tai completely and pulling on Sora's arm instead. "Tai, lend a hand. We'll push her out and close the door in her face. Then it'll be just the two of us. That'll teach her a lesson!"

"Don't!" Sora insisted, struggling against Mimi's grip, digging her heels into the carpet, but somehow she was losing the battle. "I won't go- not into the passage. I won't!"

Tai lowered his hand, suddenly aware of how foolish it must look still raised to examine the door. "Mimi," he said quietly. "Let her go."

Mimi stopped, even though Sora was halfway out the door. Her eyes were once again wide with disbelief. "You're crazy," she snapped at him. "She hates you."

He turned back into the room, not really seeing it. He had made up his mind at last. "I'm staying here. With Sora. _Because_ of Sora."

He turned, his eyes intent only on seeking out Sora, and seeing an affirmation of what he was staying for etched on her face. When Mimi had let her go, she had retreated back into the room, and was now standing stiffly to one side, rubbing her arm where Mimi had gripped it. Her eyes betrayed nothing more than mild surprise.

"Because of me," she said suspiciously, skirting his line of vision back into the center of the room. "All right. I wish we could close the door though. It's ten times hotter now than when it first opened."

As if it were listening, the door slid back into place with its familiar whoosh and click. Mimi jumped back a little as if it were going to bite her, then walked slowly back to her own couch, shoulders hunched, hugging herself. Sora watched these actions idly before turning back to address Tai again. "Because of me, you said?"

His eyes locked onto hers. "Yes," he said, his voice burning with a newfound conviction. "Because you, anyhow, know what it means to be a coward."

He saw one of her eyebrows raise. "I suppose."

"I didn't mean it that way," he said unapologetically. "I was thinking about what you said about those dirty little emotions people keep locked up inside, that they ignore, or pretend not to know. You don't ignore them. You recognize them for what they are. You know what wickedness is, and shame, and fear, and you know them so well that you can see them in yourself, and in others too. So when you say I'm a coward, you know exactly what that means. Isn't that right?"

Sora was silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, her voice was calm and steady, all trace of emotion wiped away. "I know," she said, her eyes never leaving Tai's face, "the person I was once, and the person I am now, and I won't delude myself into thinking they're the same thing."

Tai nodded. "That's what I mean! That's why I have to convince you. Did you really think I meant to leave? No. I couldn't. Not with you here, gloating over my defeat, safe with the knowledge that I am exactly what you think I am."

She eyed him warily. "You really want to convince me?"

He nodded again. "It's the only thing I want now. I can't hear them anymore. Nothing is left of me back on Earth- not even the name of a coward." He strained his ears one more time, but was met with nothing but the empty buzzing of the room. How many years had it taken for him to be forgotten? One? Ten? Fifty? With a small pang of sadness, he realized he would never know.

"So," he continued, "we're alone here, the two of us." He gestured vaguely to the green couch, not bothering to look at its occupant. "She doesn't count. You're the only one that matters, Sora. If you believe in me, I'm saved."

She considered him some more, an impassive smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "You know it won't be easy. If you haven't noticed by now, I'm pretty stubborn."

"I know," he said, surprised by how steady his voice sounded. "I'll give you as much time as you need, in order for you to believe me."

"I _have _as much time as I need," she shrugged. "All time. Let's hear it, then."

"Listen," he began, seized by the arguments that were already forming in his mind. "It takes a long time for some people to figure out who they are and where they want to go, but eventually everyone finds their aim in life, a leading motive, wouldn't you agree? I learned what mine was a long time ago. We all did. Friendship. Reliability. Knowledge. Love..." his eyes darted surreptitiously to hers. "Mine's courage. Being a leader. A real man. I've tried to live my whole life based around those ideas. So tell me: can one be a coward when one's courted danger at every turn? And can you judge a life by a single cowardly action?"

"Was it really just a single action, though?" Sora asked. "The eight of us all grew up knowing what our strengths were, and based our ideals off of them. But did they really help us in the end?"

"We're DigiDestined," he said stubbornly. "We're... we're heroes. We fought Apocalymon, Myotismon, Diaboromon, every evil that the Digital World could throw at us... anything else we've done with our lives can't change the fact that we've all done some real good in the world."

"We _did _do some good," Sora admitted, "and we _were _heroes, at least for a little while, all those years ago. But think about all of the things that have happened since then. We grew up, our perceptions on who we should be and how we felt about our so-called greatest virtues changed. Sincerity. Love. Courage. It doesn't matter which one. For thirty years, we dreamt we were still heroes- and condoned a thousand petty lapses because, after all, a hero, a DigiDestined, can do no wrong. But consider the end- your end. The day came when you were up against it, the red light of real danger. The time had come again to be a hero, to prove that you were still courageous and noble and just- and you took the train to Mexico."

"We _dreamt_, you say," Tai pressed. "It wasn't a dream, not to me. I chose the hardest path for myself, always deliberately. A man is what he wills himself to be."

"I still don't see any proof," Sora said loftily. "It still looks like a dream on my end of things. Tell me, if you still had your crest, do you think you make it glow again?"

He swallowed, trying to cover for the fact that he did not know how to respond. His hesitation to continue the debate seemed to confirm something for her. "It's what one does, and nothing else, that shows the stuff one's made of," she said in a serious tone.

"I... I died too soon," he said, somewhat subdued. "I didn't have enough time to prove myself again."

"One always dies too soon," Sora shrugged. "Or too late. And yet, everyone's life is complete the moment it's over, all of the bad parts weighed in with the good, and that's all you have to show for yourself, in the end."

He remained silent.

"I have to wonder," she continued after a time, looking past him as if she were having another vision of Earth, "if they knew this would happen to us. Azulongmon, Gennai's people, whoever it was that decided we would be chosen to go to the Digital World. They knew us better than we knew ourselves, to give us the crests that allowed us to reach our maximum potential. They must've also known how far we'd fall in the end, trying to live up to our own ideals. They must've known that we three, at least, would end up here."

Tai didn't reply, even though his thoughts began to wander down the same path. How much of their destiny had been decided that day at summer camp, the instant they had touched those strange devices rising out of the snow? Would he have ever found out all of the good he was capable of if he hadn't gone to the Digital World? He doubted it. Were the depths he was capable of sinking that much lower because he had fallen from so high? He wasn't sure. Was his guilt all the more acute because he was here with Sora and Mimi, two people who had seen him at his absolute best, whom he had seen at theirs, and who now served as constant reminders of a time when they had all been a better people? He had no idea.

Silence had fallen between them again, less tense and awkward than those that had come before it. Tai noticed that they were both sitting now, side-by-side on the blood-red cushions of Sora's couch, even though he could not remember how or when they had ended up there. If not for the fact that they were discussing Tai's shortcomings as a human being, he might have been reminded of those friendlier times they had shared as children, sitting around Tai's family's living room discussing soccer strategies. It even seemed, in this strange moment, that here was the old Sora back with him. Her face looked softer, more human somehow, as she sat there lost thought. One of the questions Tai had been longing to ask her flared up within him, and he felt that this might be the time she would actually give him an answer.

"Sora, what did Biyomon do?" he asked quietly. "What did she do when she realized you were... different?"

He looked at her, and saw that she was staring into the center of the floor. Her eyes wavered, and for a second Tai was certain that the moment was broken, that she wouldn't answer him, that maybe she would start yelling at him again. But then she smiled ever so slightly, and opened her mouth to speak.

"Biyomon... didn't say anything for a long time," she confessed, staring at the carpet once more. "A long time. I know exactly when she started to notice, though. It was so easy to see the change in her demeanor, and sort of amusing to see her wrestle with her better judgment when I did something she didn't approve of, and she chose not to say anything. Amusing, and infuriating. She didn't confront me until after Dwayne was gone. I'd never seen her so mad, never seen her look at me that way. I'll admit that that was my wake-up call. I was finally able to understand what my change had wrought on her, and how far gone I was. I wasn't going to go back to being my old self for her, and if not for her, I knew I couldn't do it for anyone. I don't blame her for the things she said, or for going back to the Digital World, but..." She let herself trail off, shaking her head. "After that, it was over. I never saw her again."

Tai sighed. His thoughts felt fuzzy, like they were part of someone else's dream. "Agumon," he said slowly, "never said or did anything like that. He was there through everything. I never knew... he never told me, if he was afraid, or worried, or angry, or disappointed. He never looked at me the way Kari always used to. If he had..." Tai didn't finish this thought out loud. He almost couldn't bear to. If Agumon had ever expressed reservations about where Tai's decisions had led them, would he have done things differently? He would like to think so. Like Sora, he felt that if he wouldn't have changed for his digimon, he wouldn't have done it for anyone. But then again, he had also tried to convince himself that he was happy with his place in the world, that he was over Sora, that those one-night stands had really loved him, that he beat his sister for her own good. Maybe the idea of Agumon as his conscience, Agumon as anything other than a blindly loyal yes-man, was all a delusion, too.

"Don't you dare," said Sora, her voice suddenly dangerous again. "Don't you dare try to blame this on Agumon. You're here because of your choices, and no one else's."

He glared at her. "You're such a poisonous woman," he grumbled, "with an answer for goddamn near everything."

He stood up and took a few halfhearted steps back to his own couch before stopping, deflated, feeling the force of Sora's eyes on him.

"Don't tell me you're giving up already," she said. "Come on. It shouldn't be so hard, convincing me. Pull yourself together, marshal your arguments!"

He said nothing, and she continued, smiling. "I was right, you know. I was right when I said you were vulnerable. And now you're going to pay the price." Her smile broke into a grin and became lost in the harsh laugh Tai still wasn't quite accustomed to hearing. "And what a price!"

Tai spun around, anger suddenly flaring up within him once again as he looked at her. What was wrong with him? When would he learn? How could he have fooled himself, even for a second, that the old Sora still existed, was capable of reappearing on that hard, cruel face? He clenched his jaw and fists in defiance of her smugness. "It's not like that!" he shouted.

She smiled even wider, and her words were loud and contemptuous when she spoke again. "You still don't get it, do you? You're so intent on deluding yourself. I guess you can't help it; it's like a reflex. And here I am: just a breath on the air, a gaze observing you, a formless thought that thinks you, and yet you give me all this power. You're a coward, Tai! You're a coward because I wish it!"

"Shut up!" he was practically screaming now.

"Coward!" she crowed over him. "That's what you are, whether you realize it or not! Are you going to deny it? I know you want to, and I'd love to see you try. It would be the icing on the cake. So which voice are you going to listen to, the thoughts you think, or the thought that thinks you? Either way, you're _wrong_, and you're _weak_, and there's _nothing _you can do about it!"

He began to advance on her, his rage smothering all reason, all logic, everything except the desire for action. His fingers were taut and curled into claws, desperate to seize hold of something that would allow him to regain control of his situation, and at last he had realized what that something was. If he couldn't convince her, he would _choke_ her instead!

Sora laughed as if she could read his mind. "Is violence really going to be your answer this time? I seem to remember you telling me just a little while ago that you were above such crudeness, that you had matured. I guess not!

"It's all out in the open now," she continued, regarding him with unwavering eyes and that infuriatingly superior air even as he reached the foot of her couch, even as he bent over her, even as he brought his shaking hands to within inches of her white throat. "Your true character is on display for all to see, even if you hadn't told us what you did to Kari, or told us why they shot you. It's what one does after all, and now I know for sure how you handle yourself. First-hand experience is so much better than someone else's account, don't you agree? What do you hope to change by strangling me? You can't change yourself. You can't change my opinion of you, so you see, you still don't have a choice. You're at my mercy. You still have to convince me!"

Her gaze was so intense, it seemed to be scorching his eyeballs. Her words ricocheted through his skull and embedded themselves in his brain. She was right, he didn't know why, but she was right. Tai felt his resolve crumble as the purposeful, justified anger turned to impotent frustration in his hands. He backed away from her, if only to shield himself from the ferocity of her stare, and heard himself bellow incoherently, hating himself almost as much as he hated her.

"Tai!" Another voice penetrated the haze engulfing him. Mimi was suddenly by his side.

"What?" He snarled at her.

"Revenge yourself."

"How?"

"Kiss me, darling, and then you'll hear her squeal."

Tai felt a smile crack his face in spite of himself. "That's right. I'm not so powerless after all. I may be at your mercy, Sora, but you're at mine as well."

He planted a deep kiss on Mimi's waiting lips.

"You coward!" Sora shrieked. "You weakling! Running at _her_ to console you!"

He tried not to pay attention to her. _Mimi,_ he thought. _Only Mimi from now on._

"Squeal away, Sora," Mimi said impishly. "Squeal away. Hold me tight, Tai, as tight as you can. That'll finish her off, and then we'll be alone!"

"Oh yes, carry on," Sora was saying to him, standing up and circling them like a hungry animal. "Carry on. Love's a grand solace, isn't it? Just ask Joe. It's as deep and dark as sleep. But you can't sleep here, remember? I'll always be here to see to that."

He broke contact with Mimi, staggering backwards and taking a deep shuddering breath as if her kiss had suddenly turned poisonous.

"Don't listen to her," Mimi implored, grabbing his face with her scalding fingers. "Press your lips to my mouth. Oh, I'm yours, yours!"

He didn't move, even as Mimi tried to force him to. His breathing was labored and erratic. His head felt like it was being ripped in two.

"What are you waiting for?" called Sora. "Do as you're told. What a lovely scene the two of you make together: cowardly Tai holding baby-killer Mimi in his manly arms. I feel like I should be selling tickets. Will Tai kiss the lady, or won't he? Place your bets! I'm watching, everyone is watching; I'm a crowd all by myself. Do you hear us chanting? 'Coward! Coward!' That's what we're saying. It's no use trying to escape, I'll never let you go. What do you hope to get from her silly lips? Forgetfulness? But I'll never forget. You have to convince me, remember? So come to me, Tai, I'm waiting. Come along now." She pointed at the space before her on the carpet.

He tried to stop her words from seeping into his brain, tried to ignore them, tried to pretend they didn't mean anything to him. But even as he tried to shut her out, told himself he didn't have to obey, he felt his feet start to move.

Liquid rage boiled in his chest. It... it wasn't like that, was it? He didn't have to listen to her, he was his own man, he had a choice! But then, that little Sora-like voice inside his head spoke up. _You lost control of your sense of self a long time ago. You messed up your life somewhere along the way, and you never bothered to fix it before it was over._

He grimaced inwardly. Where had the turning point been, he wondered. When had he gone from facing danger because it was the right thing to do, to doing it just because he thought he was supposed to? When had he gone from having leadership thrust upon him and rising to the occasion to feeling like it was obligation, a role that he needed to play time and time again? When had he started idolizing his youth, trying to recapture that same bravery and conviction his eleven-year-old self had possessed, going through all of the motions but failing to deliver the same results?

_You've searched yourself, but you still can't find the answer. Maybe you're afraid of what you'd find if you looked too hard, _the Sora-voice told him quietly. _But you still want to know._ _You want someone else to tell you. She knows. She can remind you what you used to be. She can tell you where you went wrong, whether you like it or not. And as long as some part of you wants to know, you'll do whatever she says._

"Good boy," Sora said when he stopped at the place she had indicated on the carpet. "Look how obedient he is, a well-trained dog who comes when his mistress calls. You can't hold him, Mimi, and you never will."

Tai raised his face to the ceiling. It was so hot, and he was so tired. He wished he could remember what it felt like to be cold, or hungry, or in physical pain. Those sensations were tangible and urgent, more real than this oppressive heat, this perpetual consciousness, these subtle horrors that clawed and worried inside his mind.

"Will night never come?" he asked no one in particular.

"Never," Sora replied.

"You will always see me?" He felt exhaustion in every muscle in his body, felt it press upon his nonexistent eyelids like a phantom.

"Always."

He was silent as he lowered his head, crossed over to the mantelpiece, looked at the statue upon it. The statue didn't look like much of anything now, other than a raging, chaotic miasma frozen in time, grotesque, bloated, and horrific. A realization was coming to him gradually, as if he were soaking it up through a sponge, or remembering it from a dream.

"I understand now," he said, placing his fingertips gingerly on the statue's cool bronze surface. He could feel it vibrating ever so slightly. "I understand that I'm in hell. They knew everything. It's all been thought out beforehand. They knew where to put us. They knew we deserved each other. They knew I would stand here, stroking this thing of bronze, with all of those eyes intent on me."

He turned to look at the women, shaking his head in disbelief. "Only two of you? I thought there were more, so many more. I never would have believed it!"

He giggled at the absurdity of it all, and covered his eyes with one hand. The vibration of the statue seemed to have moved from his fingers to the rest of his body now.

"Tai, my darling!" Mimi cried, joining him at the mantel. "Please-"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" he screamed, stumbling away from her and clutching his head. "Don't you understand? I can't do _anything _with you two vultures watching me! I'd rather be stuck here with two complete _strangers_ than the pair of you!"

Mimi looked at him in shock, as if he had struck her. She stood next to him for a long time, breathing heavily, while she seemed to be deciding something.

"Right," she said at last, a look of vicious determination replacing her breathless terror. "If that's the case, I'll at least stop _her_ watching!"

Before he knew what she was doing, she had reached across him and seized the letter opener from where it lay, inches from his own hand. She lunged at Sora, who looked as surprised as Tai felt, but neither of them did anything to stop Mimi's onslaught. The blade flashed each time Mimi drove it into Sora's chest, again and again and again, each plunge punctuated with Mimi's own hysterical cries and a dull, organic thud that made it sound like she was attacking a head of cabbage instead of a person.

"You crazy creature, what do you think you're doing?" Sora asked. The force of Mimi's blows had caused her to take several halting steps backwards, but otherwise she was completely unfazed. She watched the bloodless holes that were appearing in her torso with a look of detached amusement. "You know full well that I'm dead!"

Mimi froze, the hand with the letter opener pulled back to stab again. Her eyes traveled upward, coming to rest on Sora's face, meeting her gaze at last.

"Dead?" she echoed. The letter opener slipped through her slender fingers, landing on the floor with a sound that was as hollow as her voice.

"Dead!" Sora repeated. "Knives, poison, ropes- useless! It's happened already, once and for all. So here we are, forever."

"Forever. My God, how funny!" Mimi gave an incredulous, high-pitched laugh before lapsing into a thoughtful silence.

"Forever," Tai turned the word over carefully in his mouth. Without realizing it, he had picked up the letter opener from where it had fallen on the floor and was now fingering the blade gently, a bitter chuckle escaping from his lips. _This is hell_, he thought. _This is hell after all_. The truth was crashing down on him again, greater and more terrible than it had been before, destroying the last vestiges of his own self-delusion. His lidless eyes were truly open for the first time since he had stepped into this accursed room, and the sensation of seeing his situation for what it really was overwhelmed his thoughts and emotions such that he half-felt as if he were dying all over again.

He was dead, and he was in hell, alone and yet surrounded by his loathsome audience, lost in a sea of devouring, unblinking eyes. Eons were rushing past his ears: flecks of water in a storm, dust motes in a tornado, and here he was in the center of it all where time stood perfectly still. He was an old man, far older than he'd ever imagined he'd become, and so very tired, longing for release from the overwhelming burden of existence, yet he still _was_, young and raw, awake and miserable. He was trapped here, one of three damned souls in a drawing room, one of three spiders caught in a web of their own creation: heroes, murderers, hypocrites, deserters, and has-beens all at once, a crowd poised on the brink of infinity. The impossible confluence of their past and present selves, all of the guilt and anger and sorrow and fear that had been clinging to their souls in their last moments of life was laid bare for one another to see, the pain at last complete, neverending, and absolute, all the more acute because they knew their time together had barely begun. They were fated to remain here, haunting each other forever.

_Forever._ The word had left a lingering darkness on his tongue. It was as dark as the night that would never come, as dark as the ocean of truth he was suspended in, unable to surface and unable to drown. As dark as the length and breadth of eternity that stretched out across his consciousness. Forever...

"Well, then." He spoke quietly, dully, as he pocketed the letter opener and turned to go back to his couch. "Let's get on with it."

Fin.

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><p><em>Look on the bright side, dear reader: at least your high school reunion probably won't be that bad! Join us next time, when the Digimon Existential Theater presents Joe, Davis, the Digimon Emperor, and Wormmon in "Waiting for Godotmon!"<em>


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